Michael Almereyda

Michael Almereyda (born 1960) is an American film director. His most well known work is Hamlet (2000), starring Ethan Hawke. Born in Overland Park, Kansas, Almereyda took an early interest in drawing and painting. His family moved from Kansas to Orange County, California and the young Almereyda took advantage of his proximity to Los Angeles and its film culture. He read books on film, visited revival houses, and attended talks held by the likes o... more

Michael Almereyda (born 1960) is an American film director. His most well known work is Hamlet (2000), starring Ethan Hawke. Born in Overland Park, Kansas, Almereyda took an early interest in drawing and painting. His family moved from Kansas to Orange County, California and the young Almereyda took advantage of his proximity to Los Angeles and its film culture. He read books on film, visited revival houses, and attended talks held by the likes of Howard Hawks and John Huston at community colleges. He met Manny Farber at age sixteen, when the latter presented a Fassbinder film at Orange Coast College. The meeting left an impression on Almereyda, who had then just read Farber's book Negative Space, and he cited the American painter and film critic as a formulative influence in a 1999 interview with Filmmaker. He later studied art history at Harvard but grew impatient with academia. Convinced that he should be making movies, he dropped out his senior year and moved to New York to... less