Bret Easton Ellis Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Bret Easton Ellis is an American novelist, screenwriter, and short story writer. His works have been translated into 27 languages. He was at first regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney. He is a self-proclaime...
Novelist, Screenwriter, Author, Film Producer, Writer
Education
Bennington College
Nationality
United States of America
Parents
Dale (Dennis) Ellis, Robert Ellis
Nicknames
Ellis, Bret Easton , Bret Ellis
Nominations
World Fantasy Award—Novel
Movies
The Canyons, American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction
TV Shows
The Follower
Star Sign
Pisces
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Trademark
1
Long descriptive paragraphs in which characters discuss meaningless or unimportant events and objects
2
Often reuses or references characters from previous works
3
Narcissistic characters
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Quote
1
[on his screenplay for American Psycho (2000)] [I wrote the script] in the early 90s with a young actor attached named Brad Pitt. David [director David Cronenberg] was lovely - is lovely, I still like David - but he had strange demands. He hated shooting restaurant scenes, and he hated shooting nightclub scenes. And he didn't want to shoot the violence. I ignored everything he said. So of course he was disappointed with it and he hired his own writer; that script was worse for him and he dropped out. I did another pass on the script for Rob Weiss in 1995. That didn't work out either. And then it was Mary Harron and Oliver Stone and again Mary Harron, who made the film, and the draft that Mary wrote with Guinevere Turner had a lot of similarities to the drafts I did for Cronenberg and Weiss. That really was what you could take from the book. [2016]
2
When you become well known the first year is really, really fun and then you spend the rest of your life humiliated or trying to avoid humiliation. Everyone is so nice to you in that first year and then they all want to see something different. They want to see you get fucked up a bit and they want to take you down. It's just the nature of the world. You can deal with it or you can fight it. Whatever. Then I realized how - this sounds like such a cliché - empty it all is. There is nothing there. It's an idea. It's a concept. It's not real.
3
Every one of my books is an exercise in voice and character, an exploration, through a male narrator who is always the same age I am at the time, of the pain I'm dealing with in my life. [Interview with Jon-Jon Goulian, 2012.]
4
When a movie doesn't take itself seriously, then why are we taking it seriously?
5
Regardless of the business aspect of things, is there a reason that there isn't a female Hitchcock or a female Scorsese or a female Spielberg? I don't know. I think it's a medium that really is built for the male gaze and for a male sensibility. I mean, the best art is made under not an indifference to, but a neutrality [toward] the kind of emotionalism that I think can be a trap for women directors. But I have to get over it, because so far this year, two of my favorite movies were made by women, Fish Tank (2009) and The Runaways (2010). I've got to start rethinking that, although I have to say that a lot of the big studio movies I saw last year that were directed by women were far worse than the shitty big-budget studio movies that were directed by men.
6
It's interesting. It's interesting to be a producer and a writer on a movie that's going to be shot in this town. It's very interesting to see what happens with actors and actresses....It's very interesting... what is available to you.
7
(on The Informers (2008)) "I was involved until the writer's strike hit, and that banned any writers from visiting the set. Everyone followed that rule because everyone was really scared about what might happen. So, I was involved with The Informers until about a week or two after filming [began], because I was on set rewriting scenes. Then when the writer's strike hit, I was told I could not go back on that set or I would be...whatever. Whatever happens to writers when they do that."
8
(on what went wrong with The Informers (2008)) "You need someone who understood that milieu. You need a Breck Eisner, you need someone who grew up around here. You also need someone with an Altman-esque sense of humor, because the script is really funny. The movie is not funny at all, and there are scenes in the movie that should be funny that we wrote as funny, and they're played as we wrote them, but they're directed in a way that they're not funny. It was very distressing to see the cuts of this movie and realize that all the laughs were gone."
9
I think my sensibility is very literary; all my books were built as books, and I wasn't thinking about them being movies. If I want to write a movie, I'll write a screenplay, but if I have an idea for a book, it's something that I think can only be done novelistically. That's why I think, personally, that they're very tricky to adapt - that, and the fact that my narrators are semi-secretive and unreliable at times.
10
(why The Rules of Attraction (2002) was not set in the 1980's) "I think there were some sort of commercial problems with that. The studio thought its main audience was college kids today - which it wasn't, because no one went to see the movie. I think there was a compromise, because the movie doesn't announce so strongly that it's taking place now. It's in this hazy middle period of 80's music and 80's references, and yet there are cell phones and computers. But that's just wallpaper. I think the movie itself is the one movie that captured my sensibility in a visual and cinematic language."
11
(on the negative reception of Less Than Zero (1987)) "Well, who was happy with it? I don't know anyone who was happy with it. The director wasn't happy with it, and it was this compromised movie for many, many reasons. I don't think it began that way - I think that Scott Rudin and Barry Diller, who were the ones who brought it to 20th Century Fox, had a very different movie in mind. I think when there was the regime change at the studio with Leonard Goldberg taking over, who was a family man who had kids, it became a different beast. I grew up around Hollywood, and I had no real desire to see the book made into a movie. I thought, 'Well, we'll take the money, and 98% of all books optioned never make it to the screen, so...'"
12
(Movies are) much more powerful sensory experiences than novels. A novel is a different kind of transport, I guess, and it's very easy to let a movie envelop you. It's difficult for a novel to have that same power, because one is a passive experience and one is an active experience. You're working with the novel as you read it, creating your own virtual reality. You're picturing what everyone looks like, what everyone's wearing, what the scene looks like in your mind, and the movie's doing all that for you. It's the rare book that's able to transport you in a way that a movie does. Even a not-so-good movie can kind of give you some thrills or a rush. I mean, we all see so many more movies than we do read novels. It's not a problem, it's just how it is.
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Fact
1
Working on his 7th novel and sequel to "Less Than Zero", entitled "Imperial Bedrooms". Expected release is 2010. [February 2009]
2
Is a fan of Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen.
3
Has cross-referenced characters in his books. For example, Blair and Julian from "Less Than Zero" are mentioned in "The Informers", Sean Bateman from "The Rules of Attraction" is the younger brother of Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho".
4
Is close friends with fellow novelist Jay McInerney.
5
In his novel "American Psycho", he borrowed a character from Tana Janowitz's short story collection "Slaves of New York" (Stash) and a character from Jay McInerney's book "Story of My Life" (Alison Poole). In a recent interview he said that the inclusion of Alison Poole was because he was upset at McInerney over something (he couldn't recall) and his revenge was to have her attacked by Patrick Bateman. She then appeared in his novel "Glamorama."
6
Received numerous death threats and hate mail after the publication of his graphically violent novel American Psycho. Today, the novel is considered by many his best work yet.
7
Played keyboards in some new wave bands in the early 1980s.
8
Was 21 when his first novel was published (Less Than Zero, 1985) while Bret was still a student at Bennington College).
9
Simon and Schuster gave him a $300,000 advance for American Psycho then refused to publish it after women's groups and women within the company protested. Luckily, the book was picked up by Vintage.
10
His influences include: Hemingway, Joan Didion, Joyce, Flaubert, and Dennis Cooper; plus books, movies, TV and rock and roll.
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Disappear Here
2018
announced
Figaro
2016
Short
The Curse of Downers Grove
2015
screenplay / writer
Orpheus
2015/II
Short
Placebo: Loud Like Love
2014
Short writer
Dum Dum Girls: Are You Okay
2014
Video short story
The Canyons
2013
written by
Inspired by Bret Easton Ellis
2010
Short characters
The Informers
2008
novel / screenplay
Glitterati
2004
characters
The Rules of Attraction
2002
novel "The Rules of Attraction"
As Regras da Atracção
2001
Video play
American Psycho
2000
novel
This Is Not an Exit: The Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis
1999
Documentary uncredited
Less Than Zero
1987
novel
Director
Title
Year
Status
Character
The Deleted
2016
TV Series 8 episodes
Figaro
2016
Short
Orpheus
2015/II
Short
All That Glitters
2010
Video short
Producer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Disappear Here
2018
producer announced
The Deleted
2016
TV Series executive producer - 8 episodes
The Informers
2008
executive producer
Actor
Title
Year
Status
Character
Placebo: Loud Like Love
2014
Short
Narrator
All That Glitters
2010
Video short
Bret Easton Ellis - Author
Thanks
Title
Year
Status
Character
Frank & Lola
2016
special thanks
Absent
2015/I
Documentary very special thanks
Jasmine
2015/I
special thanks
The Automatic Hate
2015
special thanks
Arbitrage
2012
the director wishes to thank
The Replacement Child
2007
Short special thanks
Dealer
2004/I
special thanks
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
78/52
2017
Documentary post-production
Himself
Le petit journal
2016
TV Series
Himself
La grande librairie
2010-2016
TV Series
Himself
Ànima
2010
TV Series
Himself
Le grand journal de Canal+
2005-2010
TV Series documentary
Himself
Tavis Smiley
2010
TV Series
Himself
The Playlist
2010
TV Series
Himself (2010)
Silenci?
2006
TV Series
Himself
Deadline
2005
TV Series documentary
Himself
Campus, le magazine de l'écrit
2005
TV Series documentary
Himself
Store studio
2005
TV Series
Himself
Tout le monde en parle
2005
TV Series
Himself
Sunday AM
2005
TV Series
Himself
Fernanda Pivano: A Farewell to Beat
2001
Documentary
Himself
Charlie Rose
2000
TV Series
Himself
This Is Not an Exit: The Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis
$200 Thousand
