Alexander Payne – A Look at His Career
Alexander Payne is a television writer/producer, director, and actor. His projects include The Simpsons (TV), the 2007 revival of The Twilight Zone, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, and the sitcoms About Schmidt, 30 Rock, and The Newsroom.
Reality is the Spice of Life
Alex Payne is a gifted filmmaker and a successful real estate broker. Not surprisingly, he’s found a way to combine the two. His later films, including Election, Sideways, and About Schmidt, were also nominated for multiple Academy Awards. In 2014, he earned a gold record in Europe for The Descendants, sold more than a million copies worldwide, and won numerous critics’ awards.
Alexander Payne: His first two films are classics of American cinema, defining the dysfunctional nature of America’s modern underclass. In Citizen Ruth, starring Kevin Spacey and Reese Witherspoon, he explored the moral relativism of human beings, and the pursuit of happiness, in a way that is amusing and heart-wrenching.
The Birth of a Director
Payne’s passion for storytelling originated when he was six years old. He was particularly interested in the gold rush and found inspiration from the Oregon Country. He was intrigued by movies he saw on television during this period, which he began to mimic by drawing in his notebooks.
At age 10, Payne saw Citizen Ruth, a comedy about an unmarried lady pretending to be a man to get a job in the Wild West. Payne was captivated by the movie’s humor, attitude, and use of authentic vernacular. He wanted to find a way to create the same sense of authenticity through filmmaking.
Conversational Style
It’s not uncommon for Alex to ask a patient: “What kind of dog do you have?” If they tell him they have a Labrador retriever, he will ask them whether they’d like to see one. If not, he’ll continue, “That’s OK, but what kind of dog do you want?” If they say they don’t know, he’ll say, “Well, I’m the kind of guy who will know what kind of dog to buy you, and I don’t care if you know. Just tell me.”
In a call with his longtime friend, filmmaker, and feature screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, Alexander says: “It’s sort of like an FBI interrogation, except that instead of using torture, you ask them what kind of dog they would like to have, which is a far more effective method.”
The Art of Directing
Alexander Payne: I grew up watching movies and documentaries and remember being impressed with better directors. Many directors started as writers, and the writing process is critical in filmmaking.