Biography for
Adrian Lyne More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

4 March 1941, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England, UK

Mini Biography

Starting his career as a director of TV commercials, he moved into film by making his debut with the teen drama Foxes (1980), but made his breakthrough film with the musical hit Flashdance (1983) and was later hired to helm Nine 1/2 Weeks (1986). He was nominated for best director at the Academy Awards for Fatal Attraction (1987). His most successful film (so far) is Unfaithful (2002), a remake of Claude Chabrol's The Unfaithful Wife (1969) which was nominated for best actress ('Diane Lane').

IMDb Mini Biography By: Doug

Spouse

Samantha

(? - ?)

Trade Mark

Often includes Labrador Retrievers in his films, such as Indecent Proposal and Fatal Attraction.

Trivia

Was set to direct Stand by Me (1986) couldn't do it because Nine 1/2 Weeks (1986) went over schedule.

Producer Michael Douglas considered him as director of Starman (1984) but job went to John Carpenter.

Was supposed to direct Silence, based on the novel by James Kennaway and star Sean Connery but it fell through.

Lyne's Best Director Oscar nomination for Fatal Attraction (1987) coincided with John Boorman (UK) for Hope and Glory (1987), Lasse Hallström (Sweden) for My Life as a Dog (1985) (My Life as a Dog), Norman Jewison (Canada) for Moonstruck (1987) and winner Bernardo Bertolucci (Italy) for The Last Emperor (1987). This was the only instance in Oscar history where all 5 Best Director nominees were non-Americans [11 April 1988].

Has directed 3 actresses in Oscar-nominated turns: Glenn Close, Anne Archer, and Diane Lane.

Personal Quotes

I like movies that create discussion, I love it, I love it when they haven't forgotten about your movie by dinnertime afterwards and they're still arguing about it the next day, that's what a movie should do, it should make you argue and disagree.

There's nothing more depressing than making a movie. It has moments of real joy, mostly later if you like what you've done, but making it is miserable -- like chipping lumps off of me. I tend to be obsessive and I'm a total manic depressive. I find it very hard to enjoy things. After Flashdance (1983) opened, there were lines around the block, full houses, but all I could think was, "Tomorrow, it's going to fall off!" But also I'm terrified of starting to believe your own legend, starting to believe you're good at this, that you're not still learning.

I'm fascinated by relationships and how they work or don't work. It's all that matters, isn't it? I'm much more interested in the small picture than the big one, because I think close-ups and the minutiae and the breath in one's face is much more interesting than the landscape out there.

The style is determined by each movie and even more so by every individual scene that dictates how you shoot it. When you have something dramatic, something exciting, that's when you start moving the camera. Otherwise, I say, "Leave it alone." But look, the last thing I want to do is to repeat myself.

I'm much more interested in weak, vulnerable people than I am in heroes.

[on working with Michael Douglas on Fatal Attraction (1987)] I always wondered why I never saw on film what I saw for real. He's a vulnerable man, but he always played macho. In this he plays a loser and it was a real conflict for him to reveal that vulnerability. He kept saying, "Lemme do something!"

[on Mickey Rourke] He fascinates me. I can't take my eyes off him because he's never doing nothing.

[on Lolita (1997)] I wanted to make a movie of Nabokov's novel, because it's, I think, one of the greatest novels of this century. In the end, it's a love story, it's a strange and awful love story. This subject seems to be the last taboo. I think that what the audience maybe will find disturbing is that they don't hate Humbert, at least they don't totally hate him, they kind of like him in some ways, and I think that this is disturbing for an audience to deal with and I think that that will create discussion. It's the most extraordinary mix, it makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you horrified and that's all you can want from a movie.