Catherine Hardwicke - Film Career

Film Career

She spent most of the 1990s as a production designer, working on such films as Tombstone (1993), Tank Girl (1995), 2 Days in the Valley (1996), The Newton Boys (1998), and Three Kings (1999). The following year, she collaborated with director/screenwriter Cameron Crowe and actor/producer Tom Cruise on Vanilla Sky (2001). The latter two films are notable for their original use of color-manipulation techniques to complement the narrative. Hardwicke, who always wanted to make her own movies, stumbled onto that chance while trying to help troubled teen Nikki Reed, a friend's daughter, who had fallen in with a bad crowd at school.

Thirteen (2003)

Hardwicke's first foray into film direction was with the award-winning Thirteen. Hardwicke and fourteen-year-old Nikki Reed collaborated in writing a movie that would reflect Reed's teenage experiences. They completed the script in six days, during Christmas break. Evan Rachel Wood was contracted to star in the movie alongside Reed. The film tackles the all-too-familiar and sometimes hard-to-watch topic of becoming a teenager. In this story, a young girl loses her innocence in a fast and uncontrollable spiral, one that isn't your typical teen drama. Reed and Hardwicke wrote the script from Tracy's point of view. She is a "normal" 13 year old until she meets Evie whom she immediately wants to impress and get in with her crowd. Tracy's mother Melanie, played by Holly Hunter, doesn't help guide her teenage daughter much as she tries to be more of a friend than an authority figure. The film focuses on female friendship and the difficulty of adolescence, a recurring theme throughout her future work. Thirteen earned Hardwicke the directing award at Sundance in 2003, establishing her as Hollywood’s hot new filmmaker at 47.

Lords of Dogtown (2005)

She went on to direct Lords of Dogtown (2005), a fictionalized account of skateboarding culture. The film is based on the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys by Stacy Peralta, whom Hardwicke worked with on the film Thrashin'. She lived near Venice Beach and knew most of the Z- Boys well from surfing with them, so she was a great resource for telling the story she was so personally connected with. Unfortunately, David Fincher was already set to direct the film; but while still in the process of pre-production he and Sony had a parting of ways. This was Hardwicke's chance -- she knew she was the perfect person for the job, and luckily she convinced the producers of that, too. Lords of Dogtown follows Peralta, Tony Alva, and Jay Adams as they revolutionize the world of skateboarding. She emphasizes that this film is not trying to be better or compete with Dogtown and Z-Boys, but rather is its own story from the perspective of the people going through the events when they were happening, instead of retelling them. In a way it's more exciting and personal to watch the characters as the events unfold. The technical work is great, too, from the skate tricks to the tricky camera work. Lance Mountain, legendary skater, cameraman and long time friend of Stacy Peralta, shot the action while riding along behind the skateboarders.

The Nativity Story (2006)

In 2006, Hardwicke directed the biblical film The Nativity Story for New Line Cinema. The movie closed out with almost US$38 million domestically and added to that almost US$9 million in foreign gross, bringing it to a worldwide total of almost US$47 million on a reported US $35 million budget. At first she was a little reluctant to take on the project. She was skeptical on what kind of new direction she could take such an age-old story one that has been told time and again. As she read the script and contemplated the characters the story of Jesus' birth took on a whole new light. She thought about Mary being this young girl having to deal with this incredible task ahead and the problems that Joseph had to face. She thought about the teenagers she knew these days and how they would deal with a situation like that and decided it would be an interesting and amazing story to tackle. Instead of thinking of all the people who had told the story already, and how she had to live up to that, she thought of how she could retell the story to adapt to her own times like they did. First thing was to bring to life the somewhat vague accounts of Mary's story in the Bible. She and screenwriter Mike Rich took on the good book together and created a script that not only told the age old story but brought the characters a whole new life. Hardwicke was dead set on casting a young actress as Mary, who would've been 14 at the time of Jesus' birth. Another requirement to make the story more real was that she look Middle Eastern from the time the events took place. She found her lead in Keisha Castle-Hughes, the oscar nominated actress from 2002's Whale Rider.

Twilight (2008)

She became the most commercially successful female director in Hollywood, when in 2008 she directed the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's best-selling novel, Twilight. The film is the first in a series produced by Summit Entertainment based on Meyer's four-book series. The themes presented in this film are in keeping with her history of exploring adolescence on the big screen, although this particular narrative is a little unconventional compared to the ones she has told before. Twilight is the story of a teenage girl named Bella Swan dealing with her parents separation and having to live with her father after not spending much time with him in the past years. She stays with him in a small town in Washington while trying to adjust to a new school; everything is typical of your teen drama plot line but then you throw in her brooding vampire crush and you have a teenage phenomenon that captured fans all over the world. Hardwicke explains that it was a little nerve-racking adapting such a well-known and loved story into a movie that would stay true to the content. There were a lot of problems to overcome in shooting as well starting with that it was shot in 44 days on a budget of $37 million which was further depleted by rights issues to do with the book. Even more frustrating was the fact that her main actress, Kristen Stewart, was a minor while they were shooting so she could only work five and a half hrs a day. This significantly slowed down shooting for the project. However, Hardwicke believed that Stewart was perfect for the role as Bella, and was therefore willing to deal with the problems posed by child labor laws. The search for the movie's other main character Edward Cullen proved to be a little more difficult. The character calls for a 109 year old high school student with pale skin and a cultured persona that could rival any well-educated college professor. Hardwicke describes the young actors that came in for the part as "adorable" young kids but none that would stay true to the Edward Cullen of Twilight until Robert Pattinson walked in. She knew he was unique; he liked strange literature, movies, and music, he had an eclectic understanding of most art forms, he was deep.

Red Riding Hood (2011)

Her follow-up directorial project did not prove to be so fruitful. Red Riding Hood was not a commercial success and did not do well with critics either. It is the retelling of the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood with more of a coming of age twist to it. Again Hardwicke portrays the theme of adolescence growing into adulthood and sexual awakening. Red Riding Hood is played by young Hollywood favorite Amanda Seyfried with supporting roles from Max Irons and Shiloh Fernandez as the love interests of the story. In this version the wolf is not a creature of the forest but a werewolf that lives among them. The village is turned on itself as everyone is a suspect, while Gary Oldman arrives to help solve the mystery.

Like the late John Hughes, who discovered the teenage actors that became the Brat Pack, Hardwicke has created many of this generation's tween idols: Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen), Emile Hirsch (Lords of Dogtown), Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner (Twilight) all got their big breaks in her films. But unlike Hughes's comedic and melodramatic films, her movies are darker in story and tone. In 2009, she was awarded the Women in Film Dorothy Arzner Directors Award.

Amid rumors of a rocky relationship with Hardwicke, Summit Entertainment announced that she would not direct the sequel, New Moon. Despite Twilight's $400 million global success, Hardwicke left the franchise when it came to the sequel. She said it was her decision, despite a blog report that she was fired. "I couldn't even be fired, that's what's so funny," she says. "In my contract, I had the first right of refusal." She turned down the second film, she says, because the studio wanted to rush it out. "I do not regret it at all, thank the Lord," she says. "The truth is I liked the first book the best." She directed Red Riding Hood with Summit in 2011, which suggests the relationship is not as damaged as the media would claim.