Biography for Stephen Frears

It was not until 1984 that Frears would work on another project intended specifically for theatrical release. During this interval, he worked continuously in TV, refining his craft while developing a reputation for workmanlike efforts and an ability to get along with both writers and actors. Frears returned to feature filmmaking with "The Hit" (1984), a taut, well-crafted thriller which, like "Gumshoe," provided an interesting twist to the crime genre. Terence Stamp played an informer living out his days in Spain, with John Hurt as a hard-boiled hit man hired to take him back to Paris to receive his comeuppance from the crime boss he had snitched on. This downbeat film regarded its characters and their predicaments with a biting sense of humor, a quality which has marked all of Frears' films.

With "My Beautiful Laundrette" (1985), shot in 16mm on a budget of only $900,000 for British television, Frears achieved a breakthrough. Working with writer Hanif Kureishi, the director portrayed the effects of racism and underemployment on working-class London through the eyes of a young Pakistani attempting to carve his own place in the world. The next Kureishi/Frears effort, "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid" (1987), dealt with these same themes in a multi-layered look at the social relations revolving around a liberal, educated, mixed-race couple (Pakistani and upper-middle-class British) living in a poor section of London. Though the themes were not explored to their fullest, the rich visuals and good performances made for an entertaining film that exposed many of the inequities of British society.

Between these two efforts, Frears directed Alan Bennett's adaptation of John Lahr's biography of playwright Joe Orton, who was brutally murdered at the height of his fame by his longtime lover and roommate Ken Halliwell. Rather than a standard biography, "Prick Up Your Ears" (1987) concentrated mainly on the relationship of these two men as a study of marriage gone tragically sour. In 1988, Frears fulfilled his longtime wish to work in the Hollywood system, a move he hoped would broaden his potential while providing greater financial rewards. "Dangerous Liaisons," an adaptation of Christopher Hampton's play (which itself was based on Choderlos de Laclos' 18th-century novel), displayed the customary Frears trademarks: good performances and witty dialogue. But it was also his most glossy, stylized film, lacking the conviction and force of his earlier efforts.

As if in response to this, Frears' next Hollywood outing, "The Grifters" (1990), retained the stylization (a timeless Southern California floating somewhere between the 1950s and the 80s), but added the grittiness that had informed his British features. Adapted from the novel by Jim Thompson and starring John Cusack, Annette Bening, and Anjelica Huston, the film garnered critically acclaim and confirmed Frears' bankable status in Hollywood, capped by a Best Director Oscar nomination. He followed with "Hero" (1992), a lightweight Capraesque fable about the power of the media and the nature of heroism. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis and Andy Garcia, the film received some positive reviews but fizzled at the box office. Moreover, it broke little new ground for the director who reportedly clashed on set with star Hoffman.

Frears had better luck when he returned to England to direct "The Snapper" (1993). Based on a novel by Roddy Doyle and made for British television, this film was a sequel to Alan Parker's "The Commitments" (1991) centering on an Irish working-class family coping with the teenager daughter's pregnancy. It featured a literate script and strong performances, particularly from Colm Meaney as the father confused by circumstances. Frears directed the third installment "The Van" (1996), again starring Meaney, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Before its release, however, the helmer had spent almost two years on "Mary Reilly" (1996). Adapted from Valerie Martin's novel that recounted the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde story from the point of view of a parlor maid, "Mary Reilly" opened to lackluster box office and harsh reviews, with critics carping over the miscast Julia Roberts as Mary and John Malkovich as Jekyll/Hyde.

"The Hi-Lo Country" (1998) reunited Frears with producers Barbara De Fina and Martin Scorsese from "The Grifters" and revealed the director completely at home with the Western genre. Overwhelmed by the weight of responsibility studio money entailed, he insisted the movie be made as an independent and successfully grafted film noir onto the Western, benefiting from a superb, charismatic turn by Woody Harrelson as the "last real cowboy". Keeping to his penchant for variety, Frears next helmed "High Fidelity" (2000), a quirky comedy exploring the romantic misfortunes of its main character. John Cusack starred in a fearless and ferociously funny performance, as well as co-adapting and remaining faithful to Brit writer Nick Hornby's excellent source material, despite switching the London locale to Chicago. The director continued to push the envelope in his career by making his American TV debut at the helm of a live small screen remake of "Fail Safe". The two-hour, black-and-white CBS project was a personal project for producer-star George Clooney and although Frears did yeoman work, capturing the drama's inherent suspense, it proved too old-fashioned to audiences raised on the razzmatazz of MTV.

Frears surprised Hollywood with his next career move, heading back to Europe to direct the French film "Liam" (2000) which chronicled the effects of Liverpool's Depression on the family of sprightly, if stuttering, 8-year-old (Anthony Borrows). He remained in Europe to make the dark, critically-trumpeted morality meditation "Dirty Pretty Things" (2003) featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tatou as immigrants caught up in the shadowy secrets of a hotel's black market underbelly. Frears next made the rare jump to television, directing the made-for-British-television movie "The Deal" (Channel Four, 2003), a political drama that focused on the relationship between England's Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown (David Morrissey) and their eventual fallout when Blair dishonored an agreement made between the two allies. Frears won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Single Drama in 2003, an honor shared with producers Christine Langan and Peter Morgan.

Back in the feature world, Frears directed Dame Judi Dench in "Mrs. Henderson Presents" (2005), a moving and amusing story about a recent widow (Dench) of considerable wealth and connections whose dissatisfaction with the prospect of a quiet, lonely life prompts her to buy a theatre. Wary of the local competition, she introduces naked dancing girls, much to the delight of patrons and dismay of the government, which fights to shut the theatre down. Though known for its typically strong performance from Dench, "Mrs. Henderson Presents" did earn Frears a 2005 Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy. Frears again found himself the recipient of critical adulation for his next film, "The Queen" (2006), a quiet and richly textured look at Queen Elizabeth II (an excellent Helen Mirren) during her struggle to publicly mourn the death of Princess Diana in 1997. Newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen again) privately and publicly battles Her Majesty to in some way honor Diana despite the Queen's strict adherence to tradition to mourn the death in private. Mirren was hailed by critics and bestowed various awards for her strong, nuanced performance, while Frears quietly earned his own recognition, including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director - Motion Picture. Though he was passed over for perennial Hollywood Foreign Press Association favorite Martin Scorsese, Frears went on to earn his second Best Director nomination at the Academy Awards.

"I knew that Milos [Forman, who was simultaneously helming "Valmont"] takes a long time to make his movies. But it does work wonders--I mean, it's a very good thing to have somebody else making the same film a few days later after you. I would thoroughly recommend it as a way of geting things done." --Stephen Frears quoted in The New York Times Magazine, December 18, 1988.

"This black hole that people talk about in my career in the 70s, when I didn't make any films--in retrospect what I was doing was learning my job. But I was learning it on very, very good material. We were, as they say, grinding it out, but we were doing it with the very best writers and the very best actors.

"In the BBC, we were trained that it was the writer's voice we were filming; I know that's clearly not the case in America, but it's not my job to alter a writer's story.

"I wouldn't cross the road if a script isn't good." --Frears in The New York Times Magazine, December 18, 1988.

"I didn't want to go into filmmaking. I went into theater because a couple of actors came into town, and I just wanted to run away and join them. Then I met a film director and he said come and work on my film. I went and worked on his film. That was the first time I was ever on a film set. It wasn't at all a plan. It wasn't like it is now. There weren't people called film directors in those days. Film directors weren't part of normal life. That is all quite new. Films were things you saw in the cinema. They weren't made by people I knew. They came by magic." --Frears to Michelle Bryant in FP West Calendar, December 1998.

Why he does not go back and look at his previous work: "All you ever do is wonder if someday you'll lose your talent. That's what I lie in bed and worry about. I might look at something and say, 'God, I can't do that anymore.'" --Frears to The Washington Post, January 10, 1999.

On his entry to the Western genre, "The Hi-Lo Country", adapted by Walon Green from Max Evans' 1961 novel celebrating both the end of the true cowboy era and the author's friendship with fellow cowboy Big Boy Matson: "It's really about the mythology and the reality. This is not a kid's cowboy movie, it's a grown-up film ...

"My head was full of all those stories about [Howard] Hawks bringing Montgomery Clift out to act opposite John Wayne in 'Red River' and the contrast between them. That was what I was looking for. Woody [Harrelson] was a country boy, an outsider in the right way and charismatic. Billy [Crudup]'s a New York actor, he's pretty young but he looks as though he's experienced something of life. What you realise is that these people are strong and silent; they don't sit around and discuss their feeling or emotions as we do today, and the landscape becomes the way you tell the emotional story of the character." --quoted in the London Times of London, July 21, 1999.