Alexander Payne’s Career In Filmmaking

In the decades since Alexander Payne’s first film, “Nebraska,” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995, he has established himself as one of America’s most celebrated filmmakers. His eclectic and critically-acclaimed body of work includes Academy Award-winning movies like “The Descendants” (2011) and “Sideways” (2004).

Born to a Greek father and American mother in Omaha Nebraska on November 2, 1947, Alex Payne didn’t grow up with ambitions to become a filmmaker. He was a creative kid, and loved writing stories, and creating characters for his favorite comic strip “B.C.”

In 2004, “Sideways” brought Payne recognition from the Academy Awards when it landed nominations for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress.

Payne’s first comedy, “Nebraska,” premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival before it was distributed in theaters nationwide. It was nominated for Best Picture at the 2007 Oscars, but didn’t win. The movie has since become considered a cult classic among Payne fans.

Alexander Payne’s views on the process of screenwriting are a fascinating window into the story-making process, but also a startlingly honest breakdown of what it takes to create a film. Payne won an Oscar for co-writing “Sideways” with his writing partner Jim Taylor.

Payne believes someone is always in an improvisational mode as a writer and making up things on the fly. He believes everybody does that and that’s how everyone starts out. Payne plans out everything usually in the first six weeks, or at least a week before he starts writing

Together with Jim, they always tend to plan their work. Jim uses a lot of outlines and he uses a lot of different kinds of charts and graphs. Sometimes it’s just him sitting in front of the computer and imagining the character, writing down little sketches, and trying to find out where he wants to go.

Paul Giamatti has been an integral part of Alexander Payne’s work; from Citizen Ruth as Dr. Jack Kervorkian to Sideways as Miles Raymond to Nebraska as Woody Grant. Giamatti won Best Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television at the 2006 Emmy Awards. The duo is set to be reunited in an upcoming project titled “The Holdovers”.

Alexander took his first college education at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (UNL). He studied English Literature, but he majored in American Studies and minored in Film Studies. Payne also has a masters degree which he got from UCLA’s film school in 1990.

In the decades since Alexander Payne’s first film, “Nebraska,” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995, he has established himself as one of America’s most celebrated filmmakers. His eclectic and critically-acclaimed body of work includes Academy Award-winning movies like “The Descendants” (2011) and “Sideways” (2004). Born to a Greek father and American mother in…