Six Feet Under
2001
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Alan Erwin Ball (born May 13, 1957) [1] is an American writer and director for film and television. Ball wrote the screenplay for American Beauty, for which he earned an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Alan Ball is an American writer, director, and producer who is known for writing the acclaimed film American Beauty and creating the HBO series True Blood starring Anna Paquin. He also wrote the films Towelhead and Uncle Frank.
- January 1, 1
- 1.83 m
- Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Alan Ball is an American writer, director, and producer who is known for writing the acclaimed film American Beauty and creating the HBO series True Blood starring Anna Paquin. He also wrote the films Towelhead and Uncle Frank.
- May 13, 1957
- Taxi Driver
- Sam Mendes
- The Sopranos
- Thomas Lynch
- To Kill A Mockingbird
- Tennessee Williams
“I was just so blown away by how powerful that movie was,” Ball tells EW of Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic, which ignited a creative spark and, initially, made him want to act. “I spent a lot of years wanting to be an actor before I realized I’m actually a better writer.”
“He was like a mentor to me when we were shooting American Beauty,” Ball, whose original screenplay won the 2000 Oscar, says of the director. “I’d never done a film shoot and he allowed me on set, which is incredibly gracious because that’s usually not something people do with writers. Even though it was his first movie, I learned a tremendous amou...
“That show came out when I’d just signed a TV development deal,” says Ball. “I had to come up with a TV show, and I remember watching Sopranos and going, ‘Wow, I never knew that TV could be like this: cinematic, incredibly made, with a really specific, strong voice, amazing performances, andmoral ambiguity.’ That was a big turning point for me.”
When Ball began work on his first series, HBO’s funeral-home-set dramedy Six Feet Under, he was struggling to nail the tone until he read several books by poet (and undertaker) Lynch. “He writes with this combination of existential honesty and humor but, at the same time, appreciation of grace and beauty. It had a lot to do with Six Feet Underbecom...
“It’s such a beautiful story and one of my favorite movies and books of all time,” he says. “At the beginning of making Uncle Frank, a lot of people were saying, ‘Is this Beth’s story, or is it Frank’s story?’” Ball says of his uncle-niece road movie starring Paul Bettany and Sophia Lillis. “I sort of went, ‘Well, is To Kill a MockingbirdScout’s mo...
Since Ball grew up in Georgia, Southern writers like Williams, Eudora Welty, and Carson McCullers have always impacted his writing. “I loved their work, and on Uncle Frank, my inner Tennessee Williams took over,” he says. “Also, because True Bloodwas set in the South, I leaned into the Southern-gothic themes I grew up with.” Related content: 1. Eli...
Jan 21, 2005 · Acclaimed screenwriter and producer Alan Ball, a Georgia native, has won many awards during his successful career in television and film. Between 1999 and 2003 Ball received an Oscar, a Peabody, two Golden Globes, and six Emmys for his work.
Nov 27, 2020 · Alan Ball: ‘I wonder if American Beauty would get made now’ The seasoned showrunner and writer of the 1999 Kevin Spacey-starring classic has a new film about growing up gay in the...
Alan E. Ball cut his writing teeth as a playwright before shaking our screens with the Oscar-winning indie powerhouse American Beauty and the multiple Emmy-nominated TV series Six Feet Under and True Blood.
