Overview (3)

Born March 4, 1965 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, UK Birth Name Paul William Scott Anderson Height 6' 3" (1.91 m)

Mini Bio (1)

Spouse (1)

Trade Mark (9)

Visually stunning scenery



Quick-cut editing



Tough female characters



Very often, he uses odd tilted high or low angles for a creepy effect to the atmosphere of his films.



Dialog and characters that transcend their video game origins, thus highlighting humanity's place in the universe.



Always uses a slow or fast revolving pull back shot, at certain points in his films.



Has a reputation for declining to direct follow-ups to his films (i.e. Mortal Kombat, AVP, Resident Evil).





Often casts wife Milla Jovovich in a leading or a supporting role

Movie adaptations of videogames.



Trivia (9)

Graduated from Warwick University in the UK.





Sick and tired of having to explain the significance of the raining frogs in Magnolia (1999), he added the initials W.S. to his name to avoid confusion with indie filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson . Unfortunately, the modified name is too similar to another celebrated auteur, Wes Anderson , and Paul is constantly fielding questions about what it's like to work with Bill Murray



One of only two people to have both written and directed an Alien movie (the other being James Cameron ).



Constantly mentions plans to release director's cut editions of all of his movies on DVD. To date, the only one that has surfaced is AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004).



Wife Milla Jovovich gave birth to their second child, a daughter named Dashiel Edan Jovovich-Anderson on April 1, 2015, at 5:45 A.M. She was 7 lbs., 10 oz. and 20 inches long at birth.

Started making super 6 films while at university.



Personal Quotes (4)



I don't think it would be possible for me to respect people like Ridley Scott or James Cameron more than I already do. They're gods of filmmaking.



AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) is not trying to be Alien (1979) or Aliens (1986), and it's not trying to be Predator (1987). Those are genius movies. The impact that these creatures had on audiences was immense. But 26 years on, and dozens of comic books later, everyone knows what the Alien looks like. You've got to do something different with it, and make a slightly different movie. So, in a way, we were definitely making an Alien and a Predator movie, but a different one from the one the other directors had made".

If you work with a subject matter beloved by a hardcore fan base, then there's going to be a huge amount of discussion of what you've got wrong or right. In some ways you can never please overly obsessive fans, it's just impossible.



[on casting Kit Harrington in Pompeii] I was a huge fan of Kit from Game Of Thrones. He was the one person that I felt really popped in the show, he really stood out from the rest of ensemble. Kit certainly looks like a movie star. I met him and was very impressed. But at that time, he wasn't quite the gladiator that we needed for the movie. But he assured me that he would get there and he became very disciplined and focused on getting that perfect physique - the gladiatorial physique, which is what you see in the movie. He looks awesome.

