Alexander Payne

Payne was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Peggy (née Constantine) and George Payne, restaurant owners.[2][3][4] He is the youngest of three sons[5] and grew up in what is now known as the Dundee-Happy Hollow Historic District, the same neighborhood as billionaire Warren Buffett.

His father is of Greek and German descent, and his mother is of Greek ancestry.[6][7] Payne's paternal grandfather, Nicholas "Nick" Payne, anglicized the last name from Papadopoulos.[8] His family comes from three areas in Greece: the island of Syros, Livadia, and Aegio.[9]

Payne's family was part of the fabric of Omaha, which he references as part of his upbringing.[10][11] His grandfather was a founder of The Virginia Cafe, with Payne's father taking over the restaurant. Payne went there regularly as a child. The restaurant was destroyed in a fire in 1969; the W. Dale Clark Library is now located on the site.[10]

Payne's paternal grandmother, Clara Payne (née Hoffman), was from a German Nebraska family from Lincoln, Nebraska.[11]

In Omaha, Payne attended Brownell-Talbot School, Dundee Elementary School, and Lewis and Clark Junior High. He graduated from Creighton Prep for high school in 1979.[12] At Prep, Payne wrote a humor column for his high school newspaper and was the editor of the high school yearbook.[13]

Payne then attended Stanford University, where he double majored in Spanish and history.[8] As a part of his Spanish degree, he studied at Spain's University of Salamanca. He later lived a few months in Medellin, Colombia, where he published an article about social changes between 1900 and 1930.[14] Payne received his MFA in 1990 from the UCLA Film School.

In the 1960s, Payne's father received a Super 8mm projector from Kraft Foods as a loyalty reward,[4][15] and eventually passed it on to his son when Alexander was about 14 years old.[13][16][17]

A short time after getting his MFA from UCLA Film School—and after his successful thesis film, The Passion of Martin had attracted industry attention—Payne got a writing/directing deal with Universal Pictures. The ensuing screenplay, which was turned down, would ultimately become About Schmidt.[8] He says that he cleared about $60,000, which was enough to fund his simple lifestyle at the time for about five years.[7]

Payne has said he sees his talent as being one of learned economy, referring to the essay written by Tennessee Williams on The Catastrophe of Success.[17]

Payne's films often revolve around middle-aged or older men who reach a breaking point in their lives, enter into transformative existential crises, and then emerge in the end as changed people, for better or worse. Some unexpected life experience forces the central male figure to "crack" and see the world in a new and surprising way. This theme appears in Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants, and to a lesser extent in Nebraska, via the son, one of two main characters. His movies also tend to involve infidelity, road trips or travel, tragedy, despair, disappointment, and crises of masculinity. He has set many of his films in Omaha, his hometown. His films sometimes include scenes of historical landmarks, black and white photographs, and museums, and he often uses amateur actors for minor roles.[8][31]

Payne is on the short list of directors who have final cut rights for their films.[32]

In 2005, he became a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Directors Branch).

Payne married Canadian actress Sandra Oh on January 1, 2003, after dating her for three years, and directing her in Sideways. On March 12, 2005, a publicist announced their separation. The divorce was officially finalized on December 22, 2006,[33] although the former couple took more than two years to settle their finances.[34][35][36] In 2015, Payne married Maria Kontos, a Greek philologist he met while visiting the Aigio region of Greece where some of his ancestors originated.[37] He became a father for the first time at the age of 56 in 2017.[38]

Payne is on the Board of Directors of an Omaha non-profit film theater, Film Streams.[8] He maintains a passion for preservation. In recent years, he helped preserve a historic film theater in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.[39]

Payne was co-owner (along with friend Ann Beeder) of King Fong (now permanently closed), a Chinese restaurant in Omaha.[40]

Payne is a long-time supporter[41] of the Nebraska Coast Connection, a social networking organization that meets monthly in Culver City, CA. In November 2013, he held a special screening of Nebraska for the group's members at the Sherry Lansing Theatre on the Paramount Studio's lot.[42]

In 2012, he was named as a member of the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.[43] His 2013 film Nebraska was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.[44] With his Academy Award nomination for Nebraska in 2014, Payne has been nominated seven times, winning the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay twice.

In 2014, The Location Managers Guild of America honored Alexander with their inaugural Eva Monley Award for his masterful use of location as another character.

Levinson, Julie, ed. Alexander Payne Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, 2014. http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1941

• Payne, Alexander, and James Zemaitis. The Coffee Table Coffee Table Book. London: Black Dog Pub, 2003. ISBN 978-190-103304-5[45]
• Payne, Alexander, and Jim Taylor. The Sideways Guide to Wine and Life. New York: Newmarket, 2005. Illustrated by Rex Pickett. ISBN 978-155-704686-4

Levinson, Julie, ed. Alexander Payne Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, 2014. http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1714

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alexander Payne.

• Alexander Payne on IMDb