Best Known As: Film Director

Gist:  David Owen Russell (born 20 August 1958) is an American film director and screenwriter. He directed and wrote Three Kings and the existential comedy I ? Huckabees. Earlier films include independent films Flirting with Disaster and Spanking the Monkey, which won him the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay.

Life Facts:  Russell was born in Larchmont, New York to a Jewish father and an Italian American Catholic mother. He graduated from Amherst College in 1981, majoring in political science and English. He is good friends with film directors Alexander Payne and Spike Jonze and Rabbi John Linder. Jonze played the character Conrad Vig in Three Kings.

Not long after this, an altercation occurred at a Hollywood party between Russell and director Christopher Nolan. During preproduction for Russell's film I ? Huckabees, Jude Law abandoned his commitment to the project to instead take a role in Nolan's upcoming film The Prestige. Russell retaliated at a Hollywood party by headlocking Christopher Nolan while calling shocked onlookers "a shower of bitches". Almost immediately afterward, Jude Law left Nolan's project and returned to Russell's film.

Russell also had conflicts with Lily Tomlin during the filming of I ? Huckabees, video of which has surfaced on video sites such as YouTube. These conflicts were first reported in a 2004 New York Times article by Sharon Waxman in which she describes him calling Tomlin "...the crudest word imaginable, in front of the actors and crew." Additionally Waxman witnessed the following which is corroborated by the leaked videos:

Waxman also comments to the effect that Russell made an effort to destabilize the actors to improve their performances, a task which was not altogether opposed. The set was characterized as emotionally charged, with Russell begging nothing but his dream for the film from the actors, who were sometimes driven to their wits' end after hours of takes. The noted instance circulated on the internet was one such dramatic exchange. Shortly afterwards, Tomlin remarks that she and Russell are "fine", saying: