Sam Mendes
It was a stunning directorial debut: Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for his very first film, "American Beauty." The offers poured in and producers lined up. But six months after the Oscars, Sam Mendes was frozen with fear, searching for a follow up.
Mendes says, "It doesn't get any better that that. And I’m never going to capture lightening in the bottle in the same way ever again."
That is, until the script for "Road to Perdition" crossed his desk. He says, "It’s amazing what happens the moment you read a good script that you really want to do. The images come into your head and you’re off again."
With a dream cast starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, and Stanley Tucci, the Oscar buzz has already begun for "Road to Perdition" and Mr. Mendes. Tucci says of Mendes, "A truly great director and a great guy."
And Sam’s girlfriend, actress Kate Winslet, happens to agree. She says, "He's just frighteningly clever."
The 36-year-old Englishman made his name directing theater in London, most notably
"The Blue Room" starring a briefly naked Nicole Kidman. Then he turned Kevin Spacey's darkly comic mid-life crisis into movie magic with 1999's "American Beauty."
Now with "Road to Perdition," Mendes has tapped into a different side of Tom Hanks, casting him as a hit man in the 1930's mob drama. Mendes says, "I think anyone who has seen the movie, they buy it completely."
But Mendes says fear of a follow up flop and all the early Oscar buzz doesn’t matter. He just wants to focus on making more movies. He says, "I want to make one every two years. I don’t want to be constantly thinking how I am going to get better or worse."
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