Gavin Hood

Name	Gavin Hood
Image
Caption	Hood at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival
Birth Date	1963-5-12
Birth Place	Johannesburg, South Africa
Education	St Stithians College
Occupation	Film director ⋅ screenwriter ⋅ actor ⋅ film producer
Years Active	1989–present

Early life

Hood was born in Johannesburg and grew up in the Hillbrow area. He is the son of the English-born South African retailer Gordon Hood (d. 2013). Hood attended St Stithians College and went on to graduate with a law degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. He then pursued a post-graduate degree in screenwriting and directing at a film school in California in 1991.

Directing career

Upon returning to his home country, Hood got his start in directing when he was commissioned to make several short educational dramas for the South African Department of Health. His first commercial short film was The Storekeeper (1998). He earned an Artes Award for his contributions.

Hood co-produced and wrote the script for his debut feature film, A Reasonable Man (1999), which portrays the accidental killing of a young child mistaken for a tokoloshe. He then directed the Polish language 2001 feature film In Desert and Wilderness (W pustyni i w puszczy) when its original director fell ill. This was then followed by the critically acclaimed crime drama film Tsotsi (2005). Tsotsi went on to win the 2005 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, granting him his first Academy Award, and was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006. Hood was also nominated for the 2005 Non-European Film—Prix Screen International at the European Film Awards for his work on the film.

In 2000, Variety magazine named him as one of its "Ten Directors to Watch".

He directed Rendition (2007), his first Hollywood feature, for New Line Cinema. He also directed the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, with Hugh Jackman reprising his role from the X-Men films.

Prior to the film's release, Gavin talked about the political undertones of the new Wolverine movie:

Any movie that is simply about good versus evil ... is in my view putting out into the world and certainly into a mass audience and young audience's mind a rather dangerous philosophy, which is that there is good and evil in the simplistic and easily defined way

...

I think that for the last eight years, we've had that philosophy very much prevalent in the Bush administration that if you're on the side of good, at least as you perceive it, then you can do no evil ... That's what's so great about this character or about this movie for me and why I wanted to do it ... This is a guy who recognizes his own capacity for evil and I think that's exciting in a sort of popular culture kind of way. After all, the most famous line from Wolverine, the comics, is "I am the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn't very nice."

Personal life

Over the course of his career, Hood has "bounced about, back and forth" between South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Filmography

Short film

Feature film

Acting roles

Film

Television

Awards and nominations

References

• Gavin Hood - ESAT, 2026-01-14, esat.sun.ac.za
• Universal Viewer – St Stithians Archives
• Gavin Hood: from Tsotsi to X-Men, Brand South Africa, 16 April 2009
• Walsh, Fiona, SA EXCLUSIVE: Gavin Hood on his new film and how his mom getting hijacked set in motion his Oscar-winning career, 2022-06-10, Channel, en-US
• Gavin Hood, 2022-06-10, goldenglobes.com, en
• Variety, 'Dance till wee hours, Bill, Higgins, 31 January 2000
• Variety, Fox says Hood good for 'Wolverine', Peter, Gilstrap, Michael, Fleming, 19 July 2007
• Gavin Hood: Wolverine, SuicideGirls.com, 28 April 2009, 2009-04-28
• Gavin Hood: Enders Game, Los Angeles Times, 20 September 2010, Steven, Zeitchik
• 28 April 2011, Brian, Gallagher, Ender's Game Lands at Summit Entertainment, MovieWeb.com
• Director Gavin Hood on why he's drawn to telling stories about moral dilemmas, TimesLIVE, South Africa, Tymon, Smith, 15 December 2019, 26 November 2021
• Standing ovation for Oscar-winning SA director Gavin Hood at the Sundance Film Festival, 2022-06-10, Channel, en-US
• SA EXCLUSIVE: Gavin Hood on his new film and how his mom getting hijacked set in motion his Oscar-winning career, Channel24, Fiona, Walsh, 19 February 2019, 26 November 2021

External links