GUS VAN SANT (Director) received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Director for 1997's "Good Will Hunting." The film won two Academy Awards® including Best Supporting Actor (Robin Williams) and Best Original Screenplay (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) and six additional Academy Award® nominations including one for Best Picture.
Van Sant's most recent film was a shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic "Psycho." Part tribute to Hitchcock, part new introduction for younger audiences, the recreated "Psycho" starred Anne Heche, Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen and William H. Macy.
Gus Van Sant has been winning over critics and audiences alike since bursting on the scene with his first widely acclaimed feature, "Mala Noche," which won the Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Independent/Experimental feature of 1987.
"Drugstore Cowboy," directed and co-written by Van Sant (with Daniel Yost), starred Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch and won numerous awards including the 1989 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Director, as well as the 1990 Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay.
His next feature, "My Own Private Idaho," was a poetic film about the search for family which starred River Pheonix and Keanu Reeves. It won awards for Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Music at the Independent Spirit Awards, as well as the Critics Prize for Best Actor (Phoenix) at the Venice Film Festival.
"Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" followed, a new-age road movie exploring sexual identity and social change. It was adapted by Van Sant from Tom Robbins' magical novel and starred Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, Rain Phoenix and John Hurt.
Based on Joyce Maynard's book, "To Die For" starred Nicole Kidman as an ambitious, small-town television reporter who intimidates two teenagers (Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix) into murdering her husband. The black comedy won a Golden Globe Award and was screened at the 1995 Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals.
Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1952, Van Sant traveled around the country with his family. After earning a BA at the Rhode Island School of Design, he moved to Hollywood where he began working with Ken Shapiro, the maker of the cult classic " The Groove Tube".
Since the 1980s, Van Sant's short films have been winning awards in film festivals around the world. His work includes an adaptation of his literary hero William S. Burroughs' short story "The Discipline of DE," a deadpan black & white gem which was shown at the New York Film Festival. Other acclaimed shorts include the darkly personal meditation "Five Ways to Kill Yourself," "Thanksgiving Prayer" (a re-teaming with Burroughs which was exhibited with Derek Jarman's "Edward II)", and "Ballad of the Skeletons." The latter film starred the poet Allen Ginsberg, premiered at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, and was produced by "Finding Forrester" Executive Producer Dany Wolf.
A longtime musician, Van Sant has also directed music videos for David Bowie, Elton John, Tracy Chapman, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Hanson including their video "Weird," one of the most requested videos on MTV in 1998.
Early in his career, Van Sant spent two years in New York creating commercials for Madison Avenue. Eventually he settled for many years in Portland, Oregon, where in addition to directing and producing films, commercials and videos, he taught film production for a brief period at the Northwest Film Center. He has also pursued his other talents--painting, photography and writing. He published his first book of photography, "108 Portraits" (Twelvetrees Press), in 1995 and his first novel "Pink," a satire on filmmaking, in 1997 for Doubleday.
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