Biography

Three times winner of the Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009) and American Honey (2016).

She was forty-five years old when she directed her first feature film.

Had virtually all of her Season 2 work on Big Little Lies extensively re-shot and re-edited by Jean-Marc Vallee, against her wishes, in order for "visual continuity." Producers Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon blithely went along with this.

Grew up as the eldest of four children in a council house in Dartford.

Was named among Britain's top 50 female power players on International Women's Day 2012 by officials from the U.K.'s Women in Film and TV organisation.

[Accepting her Oscar for "Wasp"] "As we say in England, this is the 'dogs bollocks'."

Dramatically, I like darkness, I like conflict - but I don't see the world as defined by them. And why would I pretend to? That's not who I am.

Mainly it's just real life around me that inspires me. I see someone on the bus, and I want to write about them. But among filmmakers, I suppose Tarkovsky. He has something spiritual about him. His book 'Sculpting in Time' is on my bedside table.

No matter what happens to you in your life, all around you there are amazing things.

Filmmaking is such a deliberate process, but within that there's room to be instinctive. Sometimes I don't understand why I've written what I've written or why my characters are doing what they're doing, but it feels right.