Life and Career
The daughter of an artist Lawrence Holofcener and set decorator Carol Holofcener, Nicole's parents divorced when she was one year old. When she was eight, her mother married film producer Charles H. Joffe, who moved the family to Hollywood. Since her stepfather produced Woody Allen's films, Nicole spent enough time on Allen's sets to be an extra in Sleeper and Take the Money and Run. Joffe was responsible for Holofcener's first "real" job in the movie industry: a production assistant on Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy in 1982. She moved up to apprentice editor for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).
Holofcener's first experiences with film as a child left her either frightened or sad; she recalled her fright at Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor. Returning East to college, Holofcener originally wanted to become an artist like her father, but felt she wasn't as talented as others in her classes. From there she gravitated into taking some film courses. She studied film at Columbia University, and made two shorts titled Angry and It's Richard I Love. While at Columbia, she was taught by Martin Scorsese. After viewing one of her college works, her stepfather wondered aloud if she shouldn't make a career change. Disappointed, she became a clerk at a video store for a while, then entered Columbia's graduate school program. At the time of his death in 2008, Charles Joffe had become one of the most ardent fans of his stepdaughter's work. Angry received critical praise at the Sundance Film Festival.
Holofcener made her feature film writing and directing debut with Walking and Talking, which starred Catherine Keener, Anne Heche, Todd Field, Liev Schreiber, and Kevin Corrigan. The film was critically acclaimed. Her understanding of modern, professional women made her an ideal choice to direct female-centric television shows like Sex and the City, Leap of Faith and Gilmore Girls.
She followed in 2001 with her second feature, Lovely and Amazing. Featuring performances by Catherine Keener, Brenda Blethyn, Emily Mortimer and newcomer Raven Goodwin, the film was not only critically acclaimed but did well at the box office.
After directing two episodes of the series Six Feet Under, Holofcener began work on her third film, Friends with Money, which featured Jennifer Aniston, Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand and, once again, Catherine Keener. The film opened the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and its screenplay was nominated for the 2006 Independent Spirit Award, while Frances McDormand won the award for Best Supporting Female.
Holofcener's fourth feature film, Please Give, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was screened at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival. It stars Keener in the duo's fourth collaboration and was released in 2010. The film also features Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Amanda Peet and Sarah Steele.
Read more about this topic: Nicole Holofcener
Famous quotes containing the words life and, life and/or career:
“Every life and every childhood is filled with frustrations; we cannot imagine it otherwise, for even the best mother cannot satisfy all her child’s wishes and needs. It is not the suffering caused by frustration, however, that leads to emotional illness, but rather the fact that the child is forbidden by the parents to experience and articulate this suffering, the pain felt at being wounded.”
—Alice Miller (20th century)
“Because of the unusual remoteness of Russia, and because of nostalgia’s remaining throughout one’s life an insane companion, with whose heartrending oddities one is accustomed to put up in public, I feel no embarrassment in confessing to the sentimental stab of attachment to my first book.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)