Biography

Directed 5 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Linda Hunt, Harrison Ford, Robin Williams, Rosie Perez and Ed Harris. Hunt won an Oscar for The Year of Living Dangerously (1982).

Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009) is one of his favourite films.

Famous for making well-known comedy and genre actors into credible dramatic actors such as Harrison Ford, Robin Williams and Jim Carrey.

Holds a Law degree from the University of Sydney, one of the best-performing law schools in the world.

His films often feature a key scene involving a main character fiddling with their radio.

(Referring to the restroom murder scene in Witness (1985): It was the most violent scene I've ever filmed. I still wonder if it was too violent, but I did want to have an outrage over the violence that occured in front of those innocent eyes [of the Amish boy character].

[on Harrison Ford] Harrison possesses magnetic qualities. He is capable of filling a room with his personality. If he'd been a plumber and came to fix your tap, he's a person you'd notice. We provoke each other. It's no cozy fireside chat.

[on Mel Gibson] Mel is the new Australian. He is going to be a very good star. He is quite different from the Australian everyone knows -- the kind Rod Taylor represents.

What I can't do is what I consider children's films, infantile subject matter. The caped-crusader-type stuff is not for me...When I began making films, they were just movies.'What's the new movie? What are you doing?' Now they're called 'adult dramas'. Sounds like a porno film because the majority of the marketplace is devoted to children.

[on Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)] You often do what you like yourself, and I like not knowing and not making sense. You can mix in certain sensitivities as a filmmaker. Hitchcock said whodunnits were the most difficult things because the ending is usually so disappointing. The butler did it? We had to create a style in which the audience didn't want that ending. What interested me was the fact that people disappear every day, seemingly into thin air sometimes, and they're never heard from again. It's a particular kind of suspense for those left behind. And it's very important in many cultures to bury the body and have a sense of closure when someone dies. We like closure. We want to go to the funeral. With disappearance, you never have that. Movies tie things up in an arbitrary length of time, but I have always liked things that aren't fully realised. I loved Sherlock Holmes as a kid, but I remember being disappointed when he'd come up with these simple explanations for these complex mysteries. I was always fascinated by the mystery itself, as opposed to the answer behind it.