26 Facts About Todd Haynes

Todd Haynes is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer.

Todd Haynes received further acclaim for his second feature film, Safe, a symbolic portrait of a housewife who develops multiple chemical sensitivity.

Todd Haynes's next feature, Velvet Goldmine, is a tribute to the 1970s glam rock era.

Todd Haynes gained acclaim and a measure of mainstream success with Far from Heaven earning his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Todd Haynes directed his first feature-length documentary, The Velvet Underground.

Todd Haynes directed and co-wrote the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce for which he was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards.

Todd Haynes was born January 2,1961, in Los Angeles, and grew up in nearby Encino.

Todd Haynes's father, Allen E Haynes, was a cosmetics importer, and his mother, Sherry Lynne, studied acting.

Todd Haynes developed an interest in film at an early age, and produced a short film, The Suicide, while still in high school.

Todd Haynes studied art and semiotics at Brown University, where he directed his first short film Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud, inspired by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud.

In 1987, while an MFA student at Bard College, Todd Haynes made a short, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, which chronicles the life of American pop singer Karen Carpenter, using Barbie dolls as actors.

Todd Haynes failed to obtain proper licensing to use the music, prompting a lawsuit from Karen's brother Richard for copyright infringement.

Todd Haynes's second feature film, Safe, was a critically acclaimed portrait of Carol White, a San Fernando Valley housewife who develops violent allergies to her middle-class suburban existence.

Julie Grossman argues in her article "The Trouble With Carol" that Todd Haynes concludes the film as a challenge to traditional Hollywood film narratives of the heroine taking charge of her life, and that Todd Haynes sets Carol up as the victim both of a repressive male-dominated society, and of an equally debilitating self-help culture that encourages patients to take sole responsibility for their illness and recovery.

Todd Haynes took a radical shift in direction for his next feature, Velvet Goldmine, starring Christian Bale, Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Toni Collette.

Todd Haynes was keen to use original music from the glam rock period, and approached David Bowie before making the film for permission to use his music in the soundtrack.

Todd Haynes achieved his greatest critical and commercial success to date with Far from Heaven, a 1950s-set drama inspired by the films of Douglas Sirk about a Connecticut housewife Cathy Whittaker who discovers that her husband is secretly gay, and subsequently falls in love with Raymond, her African-American gardener.

Todd Haynes resists a Sirkian happy ending, allowing the film to finish on a melancholy note closer in tone to the "weepy" melodramas of the 1940s and 1950s cinema such as Mildred Pierce.

Todd Haynes obtained Dylan's approval to proceed with the film, and the rights to use his music in the soundtrack, after presenting a one-page summary of the film's concept to Jeff Rosen, Dylan's long-time manager.

I'm Not There premiered at the Venice Film Festival to critical acclaim, where Todd Haynes won the Grand Jury Prize and Blanchett won the Volpi Cup, eventually receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Todd Haynes's sixth feature film, Carol, is an adaptation of the 1952 novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith.

On October 20,2017, Todd Haynes's Wonderstruck was released, having premiered at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival on May 18,2017.

Todd Haynes directed a film titled Dark Waters for Participant Media.

Todd Haynes's premiered his first documentary feature, The Velvet Underground, at the Cannes Film Festival on July 7,2021, and it went on to be released on October 15,2021, in theaters and on Apple TV+, to critical acclaim.

Todd Haynes is reportedly set to direct the HBO series Trust starring Kate Winslet based on Hernan Diaz's novel of the same name making it his second collaboration with Winslet and HBO after Mildred Pierce.

Todd Haynes is set to direct a Peggy Lee biopic, titled Fever, based on a screenplay originally drafted by Nora Ephron before her death in 2012, starring Michelle Williams in the title role after Reese Witherspoon backed out of the role to produce instead.