Talk:Paul Haggis

Filmography

Films

Year	Film	Role	Notes
2004	Crash	Director, Writer (screenplay, story)

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1977	The Love Boat	Writer

Starting reformatting process for Filmography section. Cirt (talk) 06:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Added more to films section, in article page. Cirt (talk) 11:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Lock article, incoming sockpuppets

Given this individual's decision to leave the Church of Scientology, I would recommend that this article be locked before it becomes another ground for a flame war. I recommend that his (verifiable) reasons for scientology be preserved, and any referenceable articles be intact. However, I anticipate both pro and anti-scientologists to flock to this article to sway the public to their view points. I recommend we lock it until the storm over him passing out - has passed.

Unsourced, moved from article to talk page

Personal life

Haggis was born in London, Ontario, Canada, the son of Mary Yvonne (née Metcalf) and Edward H. Haggis. His parents were onetime owners of London, Ontario's former Gallery Theatre at 36 York Street, where the younger Haggis cut his teeth in theater production, directing, and playwriting in the early 1970s. He attended St Thomas More Elementary School, St George's Public School, H.B. Beal Secondary School, and Fanshawe College in London before leaving for Los Angeles in 1975 to follow his dream of writing television and movie scripts. According to his father, Ted, it was 'three years two months and 10 days' before his son sold his first TV script (Ted had been sending his son $100 a week during these lean years, while Paul landed various jobs, including moving furniture).

He is the father of four children and resides in Santa Monica, California with his second wife singer/actor Deborah Rennard.

Success and fame years later

Television

As a television writer/producer, he created or co-created the series Walker, Texas Ranger, Due South, Family Law, and the celebrated, if quickly cancelled EZ Streets. Early in his career, he wrote for sitcoms such as Diff'rent Strokes and Who's the Boss?. While working for Diff'rent Strokes,he shared writing credits on three episodes. In 1989, he received two Emmy awards for his work on the show thirtysomething: one as a writer; and another as a producer. He returned to television in the spring of 2007, after NBC picked up a 13-episode order for his crime drama, The Black Donnellys. The show was canceled by NBC on May 14, 2007. HDNet aired the remaining six episodes.

Film

In addition to directing multiple episodes of the above-mentioned television shows, Haggis has directed several feature films and written several successful screenplays. Red Hot, his directorial debut, had a limited video release in 1993.

Around 2000 he came into his own as both a writer and director in films. As a film writer, he received an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for 2004's Million Dollar Baby, directed by Clint Eastwood, which won four Oscars, including Best Picture.

His second directorial effort performed equally well. Crash, which he co-wrote, directed and co-produced debuted in September 2004 at the Toronto Film Festival. Lions Gate Entertainment purchased the distribution rights for $3 million and released it internationally in May 2005 to mostly positive reviews, with film critics Ebert and Roeper giving it a "two thumbs way up" rating and Roger Ebert naming it the best film of the year.

The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay categories. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the film itself received the Academy Award for Best Picture. Overall, he has won two Academy Awards and been nominated for four. He lost the directing prize to Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain, but he became the only man in history to have penned two consecutive Best Picture Oscar-winners.

Haggis' fourth film as a feature film director, which he also wrote, is entitled Honeymoon with Harry and is scheduled for release in 2008 although production has yet to commence.

Haggis also adapted, for director Eastwood, James Bradley's book Flags of Our Fathers, about the Battle of Iwo Jima. The film was released on October 20, 2006.

Haggis was hired in August 2005 to revise the screenplay for the James Bond film Casino Royale, which was also released late in 2006. The original screenplay had been written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, based on the novel by Ian Fleming. Haggis returned to work on the script for the follow-up, Quantum of Solace. He was also invited to direct the film but declined.

He received a fifth Academy Award nomination for his role in writing Letters from Iwo Jima, alongside Japanese writer Iris Yamashita.

Recently, Haggis has partnered with film producer Michael Nozik, to form Highway 61 Films.

Russell Crowe will star in "The Next Three Days," the adaptation of the 2008 French film "Pour Elle" that reunites Lionsgate with its "Crash" director Paul Haggis.

Crowe will play a teacher whose wife (Elizabeth Banks) is arrested and convicted of a murder she says she did not commit. He comes up with a desperate plan to free her.

Haggis, who wrote the script, will begin production in late September in Pittsburgh.

Activism

Haggis is also co-founder of Artists for Peace and Justice, a member of the board of directors for the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project, the Environmental Media Association, the President's Council of the Defenders of Wildlife and the advisory board of the Centre for the Advancement of Non-Violence. He donated $2,100 to the Dennis Kucinich campaign.

Honors

Apart from the Oscars for Crash, in 2005, the Writers Guild of America awarded Haggis the Valentine Davies Award for "bringing honor and dignity to writers everywhere." Other awards include, six Geminis, the Humanitas Prize, and the TV Critics Association Award.

The city of London, Ontario, declared September 11, 2006 Paul Haggis Day in London, with Haggis, his father and Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best touring three of the schools that Paul Haggis had attended growing up in London in the 1960s and 1970s: Fanshawe College, Catholic Central High School and H.B. Beal Secondary School.

TV appearances

Haggis was featured in The Dialogue interview series. In this 90 minute interview with producer Mike De Luca, Haggis describes his evolution as a writer from TV to film, including the genesis of his Oscar-winning film, Crash.

Haggis has also appeared on the HBO series Entourage playing himself, as an intense director brought in to possibly direct the fictional film Medellin.

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Unsourced, moved from article to talk page. Cirt (talk) 10:51, 26 October 2009 (UTC)