Phillip Noyce

Leading Australian filmmaker turned mainstream Hollywood director, Noyce began making short films and documentaries in the late 1960s and gained attention when he won the Australian Film Industry (AFI) award for best short film. He directed documentary short subjects for Film Australia while working on his first feature, "Backroads" (1977). Noyce became a prominent director in the Australian film industry when his feature "Newsfront" (1978), which he also co-wrote, garnered three AFI awards for Best Feature, Director, and Original Screenplay.

Noyce's next feature, "Heatwave" (1981), starring a then unknown Judy Davis, was another critical success. He continued to make films in Australia until Hollywood beckoned, after seeing his accomplished work on "Dead Calm" (1989). Produced by George Miller, this seagoing thriller starred Sam Neill, Nicole Kidman, and Billy Zane. Noyce made an inauspicious American debut with "Blind Fury" (1989), starring Rutger Hauer as a blind Vietnam vet who is improbably adept with swords and other low-tech tools for maiming. Noyce rebounded with a major popular success, "Patriot Games" (1992). Starring Harrison Ford, this was the second installment of the Jack Ryan franchise derived from Tom Clancy's immensely popular espionage novels. Noyce followed up with "Sliver" (1993), a routine psychosexual thriller with Sharon Stone, and rejoined the Ford money train, directing the "Patriot Games" follow-up "Clear and Present Danger" (1994). In 1997, he steered Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue in the big screen remake of "The Saint" and had a mild hit with the thriller "Bone Collector" (1998) starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. But Noyce grew restless as a journeyman director of Hollywood fare and turned his attentions back to his more independent roots, a gambit that paid off handsomely in 2002 when two of his films were released nearly simultaneously. He received tremendous critical praise for his screen adaptation of Graham Greene's "The Quiet American," which starred Brendan Fraser and, in a performance that generated terrific awards buzz, Michael Caine. Equally well-received was "Rabbit-Proof Fence," the true story of the epic journey of three Aboriginal girls in 1930s Australia.

• Born:
  April 29, 1950 in Griffith, New South Wales, Australia
• Job Titles:
  Director, Screenwriter

Education

• Australian Film Television and Radio School, Sydney, Australia, 1973

Milestones

• 1967 Made first short-film at age 17, Better to Reign In Hell
• 1975 First feature credit, as assistant director, The Golden Cage
• 1976 Credited as 2nd assistant director on the feature, Let the Balloon Go
• 1977 Feature directorial debut, Backroads (also producer and screenwriter)
• 1980 Became the part-time manager of the Sydney Filmmaker s Co-operative
• 1986 American TV debut, The Curse
• 1989 American feature debut, Blind Fury
• 1989 Major breakthrough as director of the sleeper hit Dead Calm
• 1992 Directed his first Jack Ryan film based on the books by Tom Clancy, Patriot Games ; the first film with Harrison Ford in the lead role
• 1993 Directed the voyeuristic thriller Silver starring Sharon Stone
• 1994 Helmed second Tom Clancy film Clear and Present Danger, again with Ford
• 1997 Directed update of the pulp hero The Saint starring Val Kilmer
• 1998 Directed the little-seen thriller The Repair Shop
• 1999 Helmed The Bone Collector with Denzel Washington
• 2002 Directed Rabbit-Proof Fence, a true story of Australian Aboriginal girls set in the 1930s
• 2002 Directed film adaptation of Graham Greene s The Quiet American, starring Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser
• 2006 Directed Tim Robbins and Derek Luke in Catch a Fire, which is a true story set in the early 1980s in apartheid-era South Africa
• Directed and co-wrote the ten-hour Australian mini-series, Cowra Breakout
• Worked at Film Australia, directing short documentaries