Biography for
Neil Jordan (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

Spouse

Trade Mark

Stephen Rea features in many of his films

Trivia

He attended St. Paul's School in Clontarf, Dublin

His father, a university professor, would never let him read comic books, but read them himself so he knew what children would be interested in.

He has five children: Anna and Sarah from his marriage to solicitor Vivienne Shields; Dashiel Jordan and Daniel Jordan from his current marriage to Brenda Rawn and Ben a child from a brief relationship with architect Mary Donohoe.

Is the award-winning author of a number of acclaimed novels and collections of stories. Nearly all his stories are set in Ireland and most deal with the subjects of children, family relationships and childhood memories.

Good friends and fellow Dubliners Bono and Ali Hewson named their first daughter, Jordan Hewson, who was born in 1989, after him.

Member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1992.

Directed 4 actors in Oscar nominated performances: Bob Hoskins, Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson, and Julianne Moore.

Personal Quotes

I'm fascinated by monsters [and] monstrous people and fascinated with illogic and irrationality.

I grew up in a respectable, lower-middle-class home. Our family was quite educated; my mother was a painter, and stuff like that. And I didn't chop up my next-door neighbour. But I remember those emotions. It was a very strange world. Ireland is very grey, and it seems like nothing has changed for centuries. The only bits of colour were in churches, with statues and gaudy religious vestments. It was a very insanely Catholic country. And, you have an educational system run by celibate men in skirts, which is bizarre in itself. But, there's just a sweet irrationality to the whole place. - about his life growing up in Ireland

But in a strange way, the more organization and the more preparation you do, the more freedom it gives to the performances and to those things that are totally dependent on those moments when you shoot. Visual things are very complicated. I can't improvise visual events. I can't improvise a sense of composition. I have to compare. I have to look at the street where we are shooting on. I have to know where the light is coming from. Obviously, you would have to know where the trucks are parked and stuff like that. But what you cannot legislate for is emotion, the way emotion displays itself in a scene and that always comes from the actors. That is the way I work.

The only reason I ever want to make movies is if there are characters that find bits of themselves that they didn't understand. I don't believe we are fully rational beings. I don't believe that any explanation that we ever give for our behavior is adequate.