- Born
- Nicknames
- Jang
- Nick
- Height6′ 2½″ (1.89 m)
- Writer, director, and producer Nicolas Winding Refn was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1970, to Anders Refn, a film director and editor, and Vibeke Winding (née Tuxen), a cinematographer. Just before he turned 11, in 1981, he moved to New York with his parents, where he lived out his teen years. New York quickly became his city and soon began to shape Nicolas' future.
At seventeen, Nicolas moved back to his native Copenhagen to complete his high-school Education. After graduation, he swiftly flew back to New York, where he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. However, this education was cut short when Nicolas threw a desk at a classroom wall and was expelled from the Academy. Consequently, he applied to the Danish Film School and was readily accepted. This education too was to be short-lived, though, as one month prior to the start of the semester, Nicolas dropped out.
A short film Nicolas had written, directed, and starred in was aired on an obscure cable TV channel and lead to the offer of a life-time. Nicolas was spotted and offered 3.2 million kroners to turn the short into a feature. At only twenty-four, Nicolas had written and directed the extremely violent and uncompromising Pusher (1996), which became a cult phenomenon and won Nicolas instant international critical acclaim. The success of his debut spurred him to push the boundaries of his creative filmmaking further, which resulted in the close-to-the-edge and intricately gritty Bleeder (1999). Highly stylized and focused on introverted reactions to outward situations, this film was a marking point for the shaping of Nicolas's future career. The movie was selected for the 1999 Venice International Film Festival as well as winning the prestigious FIPRESCI Prize in Sarajevo.
Nicolas's fourth feature, the much-anticipated Fear X (2003) was also his first foray into English-language movies. Starring the award-winning actor John Turturro, "Fear X" made its world premiere at the Sundance Film festival. However, Fear X divided critics and it flopped, which made Nicolas Winding Refn broke and in debt.
Having to provide for his family and paying his debt, he returned to Denmark to revisit "Pusher." Refn was reluctant to revisit his past success but decided that he could both make commercially viable and artistically pleasing films. In just two years he managed to write, direct and produce the two sequels. Pusher II (2004) and Pusher III (2005) sealed the box and success of the internationally renowned "Pusher" trilogy. In 2005, the Toronto Film Festival held a "Pusher" retrospective showing all three features cementing its worldwide phenomenon.
In 2006 Nicolas embarked on a second English-language (and first digital) feature called Valhalla Rising (2009), which was inspired by a story his mother read to him at the age of five about a father and son who embark on a trip to the moon. Not recalling the ending of this story has been a long time fascination of Nicolas's with the unknown. During the pre-production on "Valhalla Rising," his long time collaborator and friend, Rupert Preston, urged him into accepting an offer to write and direct Bronson (2008), an ultra-violent, surreal, and escapist film following the real-life landmarks and self-entrapment of Charles Bronson, Britain's most notorious criminal. Before its cinematic release, "Bronson" was making waves inside and outside the film industry. The 2009 Sundance Film Festival selected the blistering film for its World Cinema Dramatic Competition and it soon became the talk of the festival. With such a prestigious premiere, "Bronson" went on to be selected for other major international film festivals and reap strong box-office rewards. But, even with such a buzz surrounding the film, no one could predict how the British press would bite at "Bronson's" bit. The content was close to the knuckle, the subject matter controversial, but Nicolas's take on this was even more inspired leading him to be labeled by the British media as the next great European auteur.
With such critical acclaim, Nicolas's reputation as a producer, writer and director was solidly reaffirmed. Nicolas and his wife Liv Corfixen were the subjects of an acclaimed documentary, Gambler (2006), which premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2005. In addition, Nicolas already received two lifetime-achievement awards (one from the Taipei International Film festival in 2006 and the second from the Valencia International Film Festival in 2007), and it was the winner of the Emerging Master Award from the Philadelphia International Film Festival 2005.- IMDb Mini Biography By: annagriffin@live.com - Nicolas Winding Refn is a Danish film director, screenwriter and producer. He moved to the United States in 1981 and is known for directing the crime dramas Bleeder (1999) and the Pusher films (1996, 2004, 2005), the fictionalised biographical film Bronson (2008), the dramatic adventure film Valhalla Rising (2009), the neo-noir crime film Drive (2011) and the thriller Only God Forgives (2013). In 2008, Refn co-founded the Copenhagen-based production company Space Rocket Nation.
In 2008, Refn directed and wrote Bronson, which starred Tom Hardy as the title character, the infamous real-life U.K. prisoner Charles Bronson. The film won Best Film at the 2009 Sydney Film Festival, and was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Hardy also won a Best Actor award at the 2009 British Independent Film Awards for his portrayal of Charles Bronson.
In 2011, Refn directed the American neo-noir crime drama Drive. It premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where he received the Best Director Award.
Only God Forgives (2013) The Bangkok-set crime thriller, starring Ryan Gosling and Kristin Scott Thomas, premiered in competition at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Pedro Borges
- SpouseLiv Corfixen(2007 - present) (2 children)
- Children
- Parents
- RelativesKasper Winding(Half Sibling)Sara Winding(Half Sibling)Peter Refn(Aunt or Uncle)Julian Winding(Niece or Nephew)
- Usually sets his films in Copenhagen, Denmark
- Frequently uses handheld cameras
- The color red is frequently shown throughout all of his films
- Shoots all his films in chronological order and without rehearsal
- Despite directing Drive (2011), he doesn't have a drivers' license. He failed his driving test 8 times.
- Is a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki whom he considers one of the great masters and frequently watches his films together with his daughters.
- Danish Film School drop-out.
- Due to the commercial failure of Fear X (2003), he was forced to expand his successful debut feature Pusher (1996) into a trilogy. The sequels became huge successes and saved him financially.
- In an interview regarding the definition and risks of beauty, regarding The Neon Demon, for the BBC, he talked about his childhood, being very hard. He was laughed at because he is dyslexic and wasn't able to read and write properly and he also wasn't good at sports. He said he didn't have a girlfriend until he was 24 and famous. But with time he learned to look at all of those "weaknesses" as strengths, the things that make him who he is.
- Like all art forms, film is a media as powerful as weapons of mass destruction; the only difference is that war destroys and film inspires.
- The auteur theory is such a strange theory, because you're dealing with human beings. You only make good stuff if your collaborators are a part of your process and a part of your ideas, and there's no point in fighting them or them fighting you. Even Ingmar Bergman had a lot of discussions with his actors about pros and cons. An auteur doesn't have to write every single word, because the writer's there to help the director do what the director wants to do, and that was certainly my case.
- [on Ryan Gosling] The thing with Ryan, you can look at him for hours. Very few actors have that. It's a gift.
- Well, art is an act of violence. It is about penetration, about speaking to our subconscious and our moods at different levels.
- [on casting Kristin Scott Thomas in Only God Forgives (2013)] I was initially looking for an unknown in the role and then I heard she was interested through the grapevine. So I went to Paris to meet her and very quickly realized she had no problem in turning on the bitch switch. But she said, 'In order for me to do this, I need to transform'. And I said, ''You're preaching to the choir, baby'.
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