Director's Chair: Neil LaBute

7 months ago 05th Dec 14:11

Neil LaBute is an American film director, playwright and screenwriter who began his career working in the theatre before moving into movies.

Studying theatre at the Brigham Young University the plays that he produced whilst there brought into question what was acceptable content for a conservative religious university as he pushed the boundaries.

Throughout the nineties he taught drama and film in Indiana where he adapted his 1993 play In the Company of Men into a feature film starring Aaron Eckhart kicking off his directing career.

The 1997 movie followed a pair of thirtysomething white-collar businessmen, embittered by their shallow lives and bad experiences with women, target and romance a beautiful deaf secretary (Stacy Edwards) solely for the purpose of dumping her and thus gaining revenge on her sex.

While one of the junior execs, Chad (Aaron Eckhart), is relentlessly cold-blooded and cruel, his partner, Howard (Matt Malloy), proves to be a spineless tagalong.

Labelled the most controversial movie of the year upon it's released In the Company of Men won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay as well as the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival.

His next film in 1998 brought together an ensemble cast of Ben Stiller, Amy Brenneman, Aaron Eckhart, Catherine Keener, Nastassja Kinski and Jason Patric for Your Friends and Neighbours, which looked at the sex lives of three couples.