David Ayer
| David Ayer | |
|---|---|
| Born | David Ayer 1968 (age 43–44) Champaign, Illinois |
| Occupation | Film director, film producer, screenwriter, actor |
| Years active | 2000-present |
David Ayer (born 1968) is an American screenwriter, film producer and film director.
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[edit] Early life
David Ayer was born in Champaign, Illinois in 1968. He grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota and Bethesda, Maryland, where he was kicked out of his house by his parents as a teenager. Ayer then lived with his cousin in Los Angeles, California, where his experiences in South Central Los Angeles became the inspiration for many of his films.
[edit] Career
Ayer's screenplay, Squids, was based on his experiences as a submariner in the United States Navy, experience that he had earlier put into rewrites of the submarine thriller U-571, a fictional account of Americans capturing the Enigma code rather than the British. The furor that surrounded the film's release led Tony Blair, then British Prime Minister, to claim that it was an "affront to the memories" of those involved and Bill Clinton, US President at the time, to write a letter emphasizing the film's fictional nature. Ayer has said that U-571 distorted history by this assertion, and that he would not do it again. "It was a distortion", he said, "a mercenary decision to create this parallel history in order to drive the movie for an American audience. Both my grandparents were officers in World War II, and I would be personally offended if somebody distorted their achievements." The film has since been described as the most historically inaccurate film of all time.[1]
Ayer collaborated on the screenplay for The Fast and the Furious in 2001. Ayer wrote the screenplay for crime drama Dark Blue, and it was his research into the Los Angeles Police Department that led to his most prominent screenplay, Training Day. Ayer signed a contract to write a screenplay for S.W.A.T., which was based on his original story pitch. The film was directed by Clark Johnson and released in 2003.
Ayer's directorial debut was with the film Harsh Times, a drama set on the streets of South Central Los Angeles, showing how drug use and past military experiences affects people's attempts to lead normal lives. He then went on to direct the crime thriller Street Kings, which was released in 2008. He is currently in talks to direct a remake of the 1985 Schwarzenegger cult classic, Commando.
[edit] External links
- David Ayer at the Internet Movie Database
- Imperial War Museum description of the capture of the Enigma machine
[edit] References
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