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From Wikipedia
(Accessed
November 18, 2016)
Carolyn
Ann "Callie" Khouri (born November 27, 1957) is
a Syrian-American film and
television screenwriter, producer, feminist, and director. In 1992
she won the Academy Awardfor Best Screenplay Written Directly for the
Screen for the film Thelma & Louise, which was controversial upon
its release because of its progressive representation of gender politics, but
which subsequently became a classic.
Khouri's
most recent movie, Mad Money, was released in 2008. On October 10, 2012,
Khouri's television series, Nashville, premiered on ABC. The critics
awarded it strong reviews.
Biography
Carolyn
Ann Khouri was born in San Antonio, Texas, but was brought up
in Kentucky as the daughter of a Syrian-American doctor and
a southern belle.[2] Her family name is of Christian
Arab origin, meaning priest in the Arabic language. Khouri's interest in
theatre arts began when she took part in high school plays. Following her
graduation from St. Mary's High School in Paducah, Kentucky, she studied
landscape architecture at Purdue University before changing her major
to drama. Khouri dropped out of Purdue and moved to Los Angeles, California
where she waited tables at music clubs[3] and studied at the Lee
Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute (where she studied with Peggy
Feury, her first acting teacher). She soon realized that being an actress was
not her destiny: "I can't stand people looking at me," says
Khouri.[4][5]
In 1985,
she took her first step toward “film production by pursuing a position as a
commercial and music video production assistant.”[6] Khouri began working
in film production in 1991. From 1996 to 1998, and from 2000 to 2002, Khouri
served on the Writers Guild of America board of directors; she sat on
the board of trustees of the Writer’s Guild Foundation from 2001 to
2004.[7] She was a member of Hollywood Women's Political Committee,
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Women's Media Watch Project.[8]
On June
2, 1990, she married David Weaver Warfield, a writer and a producer. She later
divorced him, and married musician T Bone Burnett in 2006.[8]
Career
Khouri is
a screenwriter, director, producer, feminist, lecturer, and author of
nonfiction. She also worked as an actress, lecturer, and waiter in Nashville.
While working for a company that made commercials and music videos, she began
writing Thelma & Louise, her first
produced screenplay. Thelma & Louise won Khouri
the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay,[9][10] a Golden
Globe Award, and a PEN Literary Award, as well as the London Film Critics
Circle Award for Film of the Year and a nomination for Best
Original Screenplay from the British Academy of Film and Television
Arts.[11] According to an interview done by David Konow, a scholarly
author and journalist, Callie Khouri mentioned her experience filming her first
major film, Thelma & Louise. “While I was writing Thelma and Louise,
it was the most fun I had ever had in my life, bar none,” she says. “It was
such a pure experience. There was no self-censorship there, there was no second
guessing. From a creative standpoint, it was the freest I had ever been in my
life. I loved every moment I got to spend time with those characters. Nothing
came close to it, including winning all the awards and everything else. As much
fun as all that was, it wasn’t as much fun as sitting alone in a crummy office
on Vine at 2 in the morning writing that screenplay.”[12] At the Oscar
ceremony she said, "for everyone who wanted to see a happy ending for 'Thelma
and Louise', for me this is it," brandishing the statue high. After
winning the Academy Awards for her best screenplay, she felt
motivated enough to continue on with her career and express "her feelings
about the lack of female directors in Hollywood", not to mention that most
of her career began because of her stand on women's rights.[13][14] In an
interview done by The Huffington Post, she addressed that adult women
"are a market that I feel is underserved in the entertainment population
at large. I don’t see the kind of women represented that I know or that I’m
attracted to. I really want to try to write more nuanced, less simplistic kind
of stuff, and its hard to find a place to do that."[15]
Thelma and Louise
“At first
I had no desire to write screenplays. I kind of wished I had because I was
reaching the end of my time producing music videos. I was struggling so hard to
figure out what it was that I was supposed to be doing. I kept thinking I’m
supposed to be doing something creative. I can’t believe I have such a knack
for the vernacular and I don’t have anywhere to apply it."[16] “I
felt I had not found my true path. And then a series of events occurred that
led me to the point where I didn’t have anything to lose if I wrote a
screenplay."[17] She began writing sitcoms with
a comedian friend but was plagued by second thoughts about her work.
Khouri was frustrated and kept "contemplating and meditating" until
she got this idea of "two women going on a crime spree."[18] She
felt as if a light bulb had gone on over her head, making her more interested
in the idea.
She
originally created the character Louise as a woman living in Texas who works as
a communication secretary, "somebody sitting behind one of those big desks
with a headset on directing people and taking calls and all that
stuff."[19] She imagined that Louise considered herself a liability
as an employee, and that women would never be able to achieve power. This
version of Louise would always remain narrow in her ambitions. someone
"who never realized women could be executives until she saw one come in
the front door."[18]
The
character Thelma, on the other hand, was first written as a character who
"had kids and stuff like that, but I realized that she couldn’t have kids.
The idea that Darryl wanted her to wait, because the kids would be a sacrifice
for him financially, fit perfectly. And, of course, she’s really a child
herself. I had to set it up that way. I love to laugh, and I wanted this to be
a movie you were enjoying and having a good time with because you were watching
these women get their lives. Even though they would lose them, they were
becoming more and more themselves. It was a beautiful experience, a liberating
experience to watch that."[20]
Subsequent work
Her
second film as a writer, the romantic comedy-drama Something to Talk
About (1995),[21] earned mixed reviews from critics.
In June
2002, Khouri made her directorial debut with her adaptation of Divine
Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which grossed a total of $73,839,240
worldwide.[22] The film opened at number two in the box office
behind The Sum of All Fears's second weekend.[11][23]
In 2006,
Khouri created, wrote and directed the pilot for the legal television
series Hollis & Rae that was produced by Steven Bochco.[24]
Khouri directed Mad
Money in 2008, a crime-caper film starring Diane Keaton, Queen
Latifah, and Katie Holmes.[25]
In 2012
she developed ABC’s country music drama series, Nashville,
starring Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere. Khouri's
husband T Bone Burnett was the show's executive music producer and
composer for the first season. Leaving the show shortly after the first season
production wrapped, Burnett later stated that he was upset with television
executives' treatment of his wife.[26] His assistant and the managing
producer Buddy Miller took over for Burnett in season
two.[27] Nashville received positive reviews from critics, and Khouri
continued on the show without Burnett's involvement.[28]
Teaching
Khouri
works as a part-time lecturer of theatre arts. She has taught a master class on
filmmaking at the Athena Film Festival at Barnard
College in New York City, as well as a writing and directing course
at the Arts Initiative Columbia University in the City of New York,
featuring Thelma & Louise.[29][30][31]
Aside
from teaching and filmmaking, Khouri devotes time to feminist organizations;
"Don’t you think talking about it is important, making the next generation
understand that things are still not right for women?"[32] says
Khouri. “I feel like I owe aspiring writers at least the warning that they are
picking maybe the hardest thing there is to do in the business,” she says. “It
doesn’t matter anymore how good you are. In some ways, it never really did. Bad
movies get made as often as good ones, but so few movies get made now, period.
If you write for a studio, you may be one of eight writers, so it’s not like
you can have an artistic vision of your own and achieve it solely through
screenwriting. I was very lucky because Ridley really wanted to tell Thelma
& Louise. He wanted to make the movie I wanted to make. But oftentimes
that’s not the case at all. They think your script is a good idea and that’s
all. So they buy it and then they hire two or three other people to take a
whack at it and it can be a very disappointing thing."[33]
Advocacy
According
to an interview in Variety[34] Khouri takes an opposing approach
toward guns in social media; "in other countries where they have violent
video games but less access to guns, they have less mass shootings. I have a
really hard time saying, if there were no violent games, people would stop
shooting each other. I think that until they have no way of shooting each
other, they won't stop." says Khouri. "We have a speed limit. Why
can't we have a bullet limit? The idea that we don't need limits stricter than
we have now on guns is absolutely insane. Because ultimately, people don't kill
people — guns kill people, and people with guns kill people." She also
argued that America has lost its moral compass and that "it's worse than
it's its ever been!" in the matters of gun control. She claimed that there
is no quick route to end gun control because Hollywood actors such
as Sylvester Stallone"make a fortune from violence. Do you think
those types of movies will stop getting made? I don't," says Khouri.[35]
National Women’s History Museum
The
National Women's History Museum (NWHM) is a non-profit organization that
recognizes powerful women who contribute toward feminist filmmaking, such as
Callie Khouri and Susan Sarandon. It also receives support, as well as
generous donations, from other women such as Shonda Rhimes, Meryl
Streep, and Frances Fisher. On August 23, 2014, Callie Khouri was honored
by the National Women’s History Museum and NWHM Los Angeles Council in
"Women Making History Brunch" at the Skirball Cultural
Center in Los Angeles, California, for winning an Academy Award, Golden
Globe, and WGA. “She’s revolutionary,” said Geena Davis on working
with Khouri, who also is the creator and executive producer of Nashville."
“She creates characters that are in charge of their own fate to the bitter end.
Female characters who are in charge of themselves.”[36]
Filmography
Year
|
Title
|
Credited as
|
||
Director
|
Writer
|
Producer
|
||
1987
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
1991
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
1995
|
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
2002
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
2006
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
2008
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
|
2012
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Awards and nominations
List of awards and nominations
|
||||
Year
|
Award
|
Category
|
Film
|
Result
|
1992
|
Won
|
|||
Best Screenplay
|
Won
|
|||
Nominated
|
||||
Won
|
||||
Won
|
||||
Nominated
|
||||
Won
|
||||
2012
|
Nominated
|
|||
Nominated
|
||||
Nominated
|
||||
2013
|
Nominated
|
|||
Won
|
||||
References
1.The
Heartbeat, and the Twang, of a City; New York Times, October 7, 2012;
accessed January 23, 2014.
2. Weller,
Sheila. "The Ride of a Lifetime: The Making of Thelma &
Louise". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2016-02-09.
3. "83.
Ben Blacker." Fast Company 176 (2013): 138. Interview: Callie Khouri.
Database: Shatford Library - Ebscohost.com Retrieved 2015-04-27.
4. Athena
FF: Callie Khouri on the Difference between Women Characters in Film vs.
TV Retrieved 2015-04-27
5. "Callie
Khouri, The New York Times Profile Biography" nytimes.com. Retrieved
2015-20-04
6. "The
Tribute: Callie Khouri,People Biography." Tribute.ca. Retrieved
2015-04-19
7. "Callie
Khouri profile at". Filmbug. 2008-05-19. Retrieved 2013-02-12.
8. "Database
Login| Shatford Library at Pasadena City College". 9. Go.galegroup.com.ezp.pasadena.edu.
Retrieved 2013-02-12.
9. Thelma
& Louise (1991): box office business
10. Thelma
& Louise (1991): awards
11. "16th
Nashville Annual Screenwriters Conference". Nashscreen.com. Archived
from the original on 2011-11-28. Retrieved 2013-02-12.
12. “I
wouldn’t send any impressionable young woman I know to see Thelma and
Louise” CreativeScreenwriting.com Retrieved 2015-04-24.
13. "20th
Anniversary Edition: Callie Khouri Looks Back on Thelma &
Louise." Retrieved 2015-04-21
14. JANET
MASLINPublished: April 1, 1992 (1992-04-01). "The New York
Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-02-12.
15. Callie
Khouri, 'Nashville' Creator, On Taylor Swift, 'Having It All' & Why TV
Beats Film For Women Huffingtonpost.com Retrieved 2015-04-28
16. Callie
Khouri – On Creating Character: Thelma & Louise SYDField.com-Interview
Retrieved 2015-05-02 -
17. Callie
Khouri – On Creating Character: Thelma & Louise Retrieved 2015-05-02
SYDField Academy of Screenwriting-Interview
18. Callie
Khouri – On Creating Character: Thelma & Louise SYDfield Academy of
Screenwriting-Interview Retrieved 2015-05-02
19. Callie
Khouri – On Creating Character: Thelma & Louise SYDfield Academy of
Screenwriting-Interview Retrieved 2015-05-02.
20. Callie
Khouri – On Creating Character: Thelma & Louise SYD Academy of
Screenwriting Retrieved 2015-05-02
21. New
York Times
22. Divine
Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood at Box Office Mojo
23. "Weekend
Box Office Results for June 7–9, 2002". Box Office Mojo.
Retrieved 2013-02-12.
24. The
New York Times
25. New
York Times
26. Willman,
Chris (30 October 2013). "T Bone Burnett on Quitting Wife Callie
Khouri's 'Nashville': It Was a 'Drag-Out Fight'". The Hollywood
Reporter. Retrieved 23 March 2015. Some people were making a
drama about real musicians' lives, and some were making a soap opera, so there
was that confusion. It was a knockdown, bloody, drag-out fight, every episode.
27. Gold,
Adam. "T Bone Burnett Not Returning to Nashville, Buddy Miller to
Take Over as Show's Music Producer". City Press. Retrieved August
13,2013.
28. "ABC
Gives Drama Pilot Orders To Soaps From Mark Gordon And Callie Khouri".
Retrieved 2012-04-21.
29. Columbia
University: 14CU0: AFF Master Class: Writing & Directing With Callie
Khouri Alumniarts.columbia.edu/ Retrieved 2015-04-27
30. "Pop
Culture And Feminism: An Interview With Hollywood's Callie
Khouri" Forbes.com Retrieved 2015-04-22
31. http://athenafilmfestival.com/film/master-class-with-callie-khouri/ Master
Class Tickets Retrieved 2015-04-26
32. "Pop
Culture And Feminism: An Interview With Hollywood's Callie
Khouri" Forbes.com Retrieved 2015-04-22
33. 20th
Anniversary Edition: Callie Khouri Looks Back on Thelma & Louise.Retrieved
2015-04-19
34. Variety.com-
Callie Khouri Profile Retrieved 2015-04-30
35. Database
Login: "Voices: Callie Khouri." Variety. 429.10 - Shatford
Library Ebscohost.com Retrieved 2015-04-30
36. "Sophia
Bush Honored by National Women's History Museum"HollywoodReporter.com.
Retrieved April 19, 2015
37. Andreeva,
Nellie. "2013 Writers Guild Awards Nominees Announced". Deadline.com.
Retrieved 2013-02-12.
38. "Austin
Film Festival To Honor Callie Khouri; 2013 Conference Slate Unveiled".
Deadline.com. Retrieved 2013-09-07.
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