Max Minghella
Encyclopedia
Max Giorgio Choa Minghella (born 16 September 1985) is an English actor. The son of film director Anthony Minghella
, he has appeared in several dramatic American films, making his feature film debut in 2005's Bee Season
and starring in 2006's Art School Confidential. He also appears as Divya Narendra
in 2010's The Social Network
.
, London, the son of Academy Award-winning director Anthony Minghella
and dancer/choreographer Carolyn Choa. His father was of Italian descent and his mother, a native of Hong Kong, is of Chinese and Scottish ancestry. Minghella spent time on his father's film sets while growing up, of which he has "fond memories", and has said that he felt "no pressure" by his father to succeed in the entertainment industry.
Minghella was educated at two independent school
s: at St Anthony's Preparatory School and University College School
in Hampstead. He then attended Columbia University
, which he considered his "first priority", as part of the class of 2009. He typically worked on films only during his summer break. Minghella said that he felt like "an English boy at an American school", kept to himself, and that most students at Columbia had "no idea" that he was an actor.
at London's West End; he subsequently dropped out of the University College School
to pursue an acting career, and attended the National Youth Theatre
. Minghella did not always want to become an actor. He said "I thought it was sort of embarrassing to say you wanted to be an actor—it was, like, uncool. And growing up I was massively concerned with seeming cool. I thought up until about age 16 that I was going to be a music video director
."
Although Minghella had a minor, uncredited appearance as an extra
in his father's film, Cold Mountain
, his first professional role was in Bee Season
, playing the son of a dysfunctional Jewish American family. The film was released in November 2005 to mostly mixed reviews and low box office, grossing only $1 million in its limited release, although critics remarked that Minghella was "a talented young actor to watch, delivering a strong performance".
Minghella followed with the political thriller Syriana
, which was also released in November 2005, playing the son of George Clooney
's CIA agent character. In 2006, he starred in the Daniel Clowes
adaptation Art School Confidential, a quirky comedy directed by Terry Zwigoff
and co-starring Sophia Myles
and John Malkovich
. Minghella got the part after meeting Zwigoff when he visited the set of Bee Season.
His film Elvis and Anabelle
premiered at the South by Southwest
film festival
on 10 March 2007. It's a dark romantic drama in which he plays a mortician's son; the film co-stars Blake Lively
and Mary Steenburgen
. Minghella has described it as "a really sweet film". Minghella was to play Art Bechstein in the film version of writer Michael Chabon
's novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
, but eventually dropped out of the project due to his university schedule.
The trade press in 2007 reported Minghella was cast in Beeban Kidron
's Hippie Hippie Shake, a film about writer Richard Neville
set in 1960s London, in that time.
In March 2008, it was announced that Minghella would star opposite Rachel Weisz
in Alejandro Amenábar
's second English-language film entitled Agora
. The film is set in fourth century Egypt
and revolves around Weisz' character Hypatia of Alexandria
. Later in 2008, Minghella was seen in two theatrical releases; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
starring Simon Pegg
in which Minghella plays a pompous film director, and a segment of the dark comedy Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
.
In David Fincher
's The Social Network
, the 2010 film about the origins of Facebook, he plays Divya Narenda, one of the Harvard upperclassmen who sues Mark Zuckerberg
for stealing the idea behind Facebook.
In June 2010, Minghella was cast in the Russian science-fiction film The Darkest Hour
.
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....
, he has appeared in several dramatic American films, making his feature film debut in 2005's Bee Season
Bee Season (film)
Bee Season is a 2005 American drama film adaptation of the 2000 novel of the same name by Myla Goldberg. The film was directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel and written by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal. It stars Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.-Plot:...
and starring in 2006's Art School Confidential. He also appears as Divya Narendra
Divya Narendra
Divya Narendra is an American businessman. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of SumZero. He also co-founded HarvardConnection with Harvard classmates Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss....
in 2010's The Social Network
The Social Network
The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits...
.
Personal life
Minghella was born in HampsteadHampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, London, the son of Academy Award-winning director Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....
and dancer/choreographer Carolyn Choa. His father was of Italian descent and his mother, a native of Hong Kong, is of Chinese and Scottish ancestry. Minghella spent time on his father's film sets while growing up, of which he has "fond memories", and has said that he felt "no pressure" by his father to succeed in the entertainment industry.
Minghella was educated at two independent school
Independent school
An independent school is a school that is independent in its finances and governance; it is not dependent upon national or local government for financing its operations, nor reliant on taxpayer contributions, and is instead funded by a combination of tuition charges, gifts, and in some cases the...
s: at St Anthony's Preparatory School and University College School
University College School
University College School, generally known as UCS, is an Independent school charity situated in Hampstead, north west London, England. The school was founded in 1830 by University College London and inherited many of that institution's progressive and secular views...
in Hampstead. He then attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, which he considered his "first priority", as part of the class of 2009. He typically worked on films only during his summer break. Minghella said that he felt like "an English boy at an American school", kept to himself, and that most students at Columbia had "no idea" that he was an actor.
Career
Minghella was inspired to become an actor during his late teenage years, after seeing a production of the play This is Our YouthThis is Our Youth
This Is Our Youth is a 1996 play by American dramatist and screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan.-Production history:Originally produced by The New Group, the play opened at the INTAR Theatre in New York City in October 1996. It later opened at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre in November 1998...
at London's West End; he subsequently dropped out of the University College School
University College School
University College School, generally known as UCS, is an Independent school charity situated in Hampstead, north west London, England. The school was founded in 1830 by University College London and inherited many of that institution's progressive and secular views...
to pursue an acting career, and attended the National Youth Theatre
National Youth Theatre
The National Youth Theatre is a registered charity in London, Great Britain, committed to creative, personal and social development of young people through the medium of creative arts....
. Minghella did not always want to become an actor. He said "I thought it was sort of embarrassing to say you wanted to be an actor—it was, like, uncool. And growing up I was massively concerned with seeming cool. I thought up until about age 16 that I was going to be a music video director
Music video director
A music video director is driven by a given music track. These are called music videos and are then used as promotional tools for popular music singles...
."
Although Minghella had a minor, uncredited appearance as an extra
Extra (actor)
A background actor or extra is a performer in a film, television show, stage, musical, opera or ballet production, who appears in a nonspeaking, nonsinging or nondancing capacity, usually in the background...
in his father's film, Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain (film)
Cold Mountain is a 2003 war drama film written and directed by Anthony Minghella. The film is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Charles Frazier...
, his first professional role was in Bee Season
Bee Season (film)
Bee Season is a 2005 American drama film adaptation of the 2000 novel of the same name by Myla Goldberg. The film was directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel and written by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal. It stars Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.-Plot:...
, playing the son of a dysfunctional Jewish American family. The film was released in November 2005 to mostly mixed reviews and low box office, grossing only $1 million in its limited release, although critics remarked that Minghella was "a talented young actor to watch, delivering a strong performance".
Minghella followed with the political thriller Syriana
Syriana
Syriana is a 2005 geopolitical thriller film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, and executive produced by George Clooney, who also stars in the film with an ensemble cast. Gaghan's screenplay is loosely adapted from Robert Baer's memoir See No Evil...
, which was also released in November 2005, playing the son of George Clooney
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...
's CIA agent character. In 2006, he starred in the Daniel Clowes
Daniel Clowes
Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an American author, screenwriter and cartoonist of alternative comic books....
adaptation Art School Confidential, a quirky comedy directed by Terry Zwigoff
Terry Zwigoff
Terry Zwigoff is an American filmmaker whose work often deals with misfits, antiheros, and themes of alienation. His fiction films are the features Ghost World , Bad Santa , and Art School Confidential...
and co-starring Sophia Myles
Sophia Myles
-Early life:Myles was born in London. She is the daughter of Jane, who works in educational publishing, and Peter Myles, a retired Anglican vicar in Isleworth, west London. Her maternal grandmother was Russian, and she refers to herself as "half-Welsh, half-Russian". She grew up in Notting Hill,...
and John Malkovich
John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
. Minghella got the part after meeting Zwigoff when he visited the set of Bee Season.
His film Elvis and Anabelle
Elvis and Anabelle
Elvis and Anabelle is an independent film directed by Will Geiger. It premiered on March 10, 2007 at the South by Southwest film and music festival in Austin, Texas...
premiered at the South by Southwest
South by Southwest
South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...
film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
on 10 March 2007. It's a dark romantic drama in which he plays a mortician's son; the film co-stars Blake Lively
Blake Lively
Blake Christina Lively is an American actress and model who stars as Serena van der Woodsen in the television teen drama series Gossip Girl...
and Mary Steenburgen
Mary Steenburgen
Mary Nell Steenburgen is an American actress. She is best known for playing the role of Lynda Dummar in Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard, which earned her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.-Early life:...
. Minghella has described it as "a really sweet film". Minghella was to play Art Bechstein in the film version of writer Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon born May 24, 1963) is an American author and "one of the most celebrated writers of his generation", according to The Virginia Quarterly Review....
's novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a 1988 novel by American author Michael Chabon. The story is a coming-of-age tale set during the early 1980s in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....
, but eventually dropped out of the project due to his university schedule.
The trade press in 2007 reported Minghella was cast in Beeban Kidron
Beeban Kidron
Beeban Kidron is an English Film Director known for her much-lauded adaptation of Jeanette Winterson's autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and for directing Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason...
's Hippie Hippie Shake, a film about writer Richard Neville
Richard Neville (writer)
Richard Neville is an Australian author and self-described "futurist", who came to fame as a co-editor of the counterculture magazine Oz in Australia and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and early 1970s...
set in 1960s London, in that time.
In March 2008, it was announced that Minghella would star opposite Rachel Weisz
Rachel Weisz
Rachel Hannah Weisz born 7 March 1970)is an English-American film and theatre actress and former fashion model. She started her acting career at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she co-founded the theatrical group Cambridge Talking Tongues...
in Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is a Spanish- Chilean film director. Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile to a Spanish mother and Chilean father, but the family moved to Spain just one year after his birth...
's second English-language film entitled Agora
Agora (film)
Agora is a 2009 Spanish historical drama film directed by Alejandro Amenábar and written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil. The biopic stars Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, a female mathematician, philosopher and astronomer in 4th century Roman Egypt who investigates the flaws of the geocentric Ptolemaic system...
. The film is set in fourth century Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and revolves around Weisz' character Hypatia of Alexandria
Hypatia of Alexandria
Hypatia was an Egyptian Neoplatonist philosopher who was the first notable woman in mathematics. As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy...
. Later in 2008, Minghella was seen in two theatrical releases; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (film)
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is a 2008 British comedy film based upon British writer Toby Young's 2001 memoir of the same name. The film follows a similar storyline, about his five year struggle to make it in the United States after employment at Sharps Magazine...
starring Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer, and director. He is best known for having co-written and stared in various Edgar Wright features, mainly Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the comedy series Spaced.He also portrayed Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the 2009 Star Trek film...
in which Minghella plays a pompous film director, and a segment of the dark comedy Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (film)
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by John Krasinski, based on a short story collection of the same name by David Foster Wallace.-Plot:...
.
In David Fincher
David Fincher
David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
's The Social Network
The Social Network
The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits...
, the 2010 film about the origins of Facebook, he plays Divya Narenda, one of the Harvard upperclassmen who sues Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...
for stealing the idea behind Facebook.
In June 2010, Minghella was cast in the Russian science-fiction film The Darkest Hour
The Darkest Hour (film)
The Darkest Hour is an upcoming 3D science-fiction film directed by Chris Gorak and produced by Timur Bekmambetov. The American-based production depicts an alien invasion in Russia and stars Olivia Thirlby and Emile Hirsch as young people caught in the invasion...
.
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Toy Boys | Danny | Short |
| 1998 | Let The Good Times Roll | Boy with dog | Short |
| 2005 | Bee Season Bee Season (film) Bee Season is a 2005 American drama film adaptation of the 2000 novel of the same name by Myla Goldberg. The film was directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel and written by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal. It stars Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.-Plot:... |
Aaron Naumann | |
| Syriana Syriana Syriana is a 2005 geopolitical thriller film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, and executive produced by George Clooney, who also stars in the film with an ensemble cast. Gaghan's screenplay is loosely adapted from Robert Baer's memoir See No Evil... |
Robby Barnes | ||
| 2006 | Art School Confidential | Jerome Platz | |
| 2007 | Elvis and Anabelle Elvis and Anabelle Elvis and Anabelle is an independent film directed by Will Geiger. It premiered on March 10, 2007 at the South by Southwest film and music festival in Austin, Texas... |
Elvis | |
| 2008 | How to Lose Friends & Alienate People How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (film) How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is a 2008 British comedy film based upon British writer Toby Young's 2001 memoir of the same name. The film follows a similar storyline, about his five year struggle to make it in the United States after employment at Sharps Magazine... |
Vincent Lepak | |
| 2009 | Brief Interviews with Hideous Men Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (film) Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by John Krasinski, based on a short story collection of the same name by David Foster Wallace.-Plot:... |
Kevin / Subject #28 | |
| Agora Agora (film) Agora is a 2009 Spanish historical drama film directed by Alejandro Amenábar and written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil. The biopic stars Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, a female mathematician, philosopher and astronomer in 4th century Roman Egypt who investigates the flaws of the geocentric Ptolemaic system... |
Davus | ||
| 2010 | Hippie Hippie Shake | Martin Sharp Martin Sharp Martin Sharp is an Australian artist, underground cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker. Sharp has made contributions to Australian and international culture since the early 60s, and is hailed as Australia's foremost pop artist... |
Awaiting release |
| The Social Network The Social Network The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits... |
Divya Narendra Divya Narendra Divya Narendra is an American businessman. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of SumZero. He also co-founded HarvardConnection with Harvard classmates Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss.... |
||
| 2011 | The Ides of March The Ides of March (film) The Ides of March is a 2011 American political drama thriller film directed by George Clooney from a screenplay written by Clooney, along with Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon. The film is an adaptation of Willimon's 2008 play Farragut North... |
Ben Harper | |
| The Darkest Hour The Darkest Hour (film) The Darkest Hour is an upcoming 3D science-fiction film directed by Chris Gorak and produced by Timur Bekmambetov. The American-based production depicts an alien invasion in Russia and stars Olivia Thirlby and Emile Hirsch as young people caught in the invasion... |
Ben |