Doug Liman - Biography

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This neophyte director scored a hit with his first released feature, the critical hit comedy "Swingers" (1996), on which he did double duty as director of photography. Doug Liman began making short films while still in junior high and studied at NYC's International Center of Photography. While attending Brown, he helped to co-found the student-run cable television station and served as its first station manager. Liman attended the graduate program at USC where he was tapped to helm his first project, the comedy thriller "Getting In/Student Body" (1993). This little seen, direct-to-video release featured a cast of up and coming players (e.g., Stephen Mailer, Matthew Perry, Andrew McCarthy and Christine Baranski) in a tale of a wait-listed med student who bribes those ahead of him only to discover they start turning up dead.

Liman became attached to direct "Swingers" when its screenwriter Jon Favreau turned down offers from studios who wanted to cast established actors. The director agreed to cast Favreau and his friends (Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston and Patrick Van Horne) in this comedy about struggling actors amid the L.A. club milieu. Centered around a group of friends trying to snap a heartbroken buddy (Favreau) out of his lovesick funk, the film featured a good bit of swaggering hipness and self-conscious posturing but was strongly grounded in genuine sweetness. Made on a budget of $250,000, the dialogue-propelled "Swingers" was often filmed on locations without permits in a pseudo-documentary style. The result was a film filled with energy and charm that captivated audiences and critics and not only established a cult following, but also jump-started the careers of the featured actors, most notably Vaughn.

Artful, smart and exhilarating, Liman's rapid-paced next effort "Go" (1999) more than lived up to the legacy of the acclaimed "Swingers". A refreshingly optimistic and affirming take on John August's script about young Los Angelenos on the fast track, "Go" was comprised of three separate but related sections, each focusing on different members of the film's talented ensemble of up and comers. Liman showed a rare filmmaker's economy, bringing in this elaborate and energetic ride at well under two hours. Doing double duty as cinematographer, Liman created a look for the film that stylistically captured both the script's vivid spirit and somewhat dark subject matter. The director shot some especially visually arresting scenes, including an Ecstasy-fueled hallucination set in a supermarket, a terrifying neon lit Las Vegas strip car chase and a hazy rave dance floor scene. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews but box office returns were comparably lackluster. Marketed as a teen movie because of its hip, young cast, the exceptional film was lost in the influx of insipid commercial teen fare.

Following "Go", Liman produced the Sarah Thorp film "See Jane Run" (lensed 1999), starring Clea DuVall and Kevin Corrigan. His next directing project was scheduled to be "3 Days Out", from John Freeman's script about NASA outlaws.