Craig Gillespie
| Craig Gillespie | |
|---|---|
.jpg) |
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| Born |
1 September 1967 Sydney, Australia |
| Occupation |
Film director Commercial director |
| Years active | 2007–present |
Craig Gillespie (born 1 September 1967) is an Australian film director, best known for his films Lars and the Real Girl and the Fright Night remake.
Born and raised in Sydney, Gillespie moved to New York City at the age of nineteen to study illustration, graphic design and advertising at Manhattan's School of Visual Arts. He first developed an interest in film in his early twenties when a friend of his was becoming a film director and encouraged him to do the same. Gillespie stated he had grown up as an atheist.
Gillespie worked for fifteen years as a commercial director, commonly working with cinematographers Adam Kimmel and Rodrigo Prieto. He changed advertising agencies often, once working at six agencies in the space of five years. Following nominations in 2001 and 2002 in the Directors Guild of America Award category for "Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials", he won in 2006 for his Ameriquest and Altoids commercials. He also won a Golden Lion Award at 2005's Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, and two of his commercials belong to the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan's permanent collection.
Gillespie's debut feature film was 2007's Mr. Woodcock. He left the project after several negative test screenings, and many scenes were re-written and re-shot, David Dobkin replacing Gillespie in the director's role. Upon initially receiving the script, Gillespie had assumed that audiences would respond well to the dark humor he had been using in his commercials, but, according to him, "it was obvious the audience wanted a broader comedy, not the one I'd made. I appreciated the predicament New Line was in, so I stepped aside." Less than a month after principal photography of Mr. Woodcock concluded, Gillespie set up pre-production of Lars and the Real Girl, for which he had had the script for four years but had not attached any cast members or a studio. He had first read the script before he was attached to Mr. Woodcock, but the pitch for Lars and the Real Girl—a man falling in love with a sex doll—which he had almost turned down himself, believing the premise to be an "absurd notion", put off away many major studios and he chose to direct Mr. Woodcock first.
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