Born February 10, 1961in Omaha, Nebraska, Alexander Constantine Papadopoulos, known professionally as Alexander Payne, is the son of the owners of Omaha’s legendary Virginia Café, a popular restaurant founded by his paternal grandfather. He is the youngest of three brothers.
Payne was educated at the prestigious Brownell-Talbot Elementary School, Lewis and Clark Junior High, Creighton Prep, and Stanford. Writing came naturally to him. He wrote a humor column for his high school newspaper and was editor of the high school yearbook. He began making short films at 14 when his father gave him an 8mm projector.
After graduating from Stanford, Payne spent some time oversees including several months in Columbia where he published an article about social changes between 1900 and 1930. He later attended ULCA Film School, graduating in 1990.
Working in various capacities in film and television, Payne wrote and directed several shorts before making his feature film debut with 1996’s Citizen Ruth, a satirical black comedy about abortion rights starring Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Kelly Preston, and Burt Reynolds. It was his second film, Election, however, that put him on the map. A comedy about a high school election starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick, it earned Witherspoon a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Comedy and Payne his first Oscar nomination for his screenplay.
Payne’s third film, About Schmidt, a drama with comic undertones, netted Payne a Golden Globe nomination but no Oscar consideration although it did earn Oscar nominations for Jack Nicolson as a recently retired widower and Kathy Bates as his daughter’s prospective mother-in-law. In 2003 he married Sandra Oh, one of the stars of his 1994 film, Sideways, for which he was nominated for Oscars for Best Director and Adapted Screenplay, winning for the latter. Two of Oh’s co-stars, Thomas Haden Church, and Virginia Madsen were nominated for their performances in the comedy set in California’s wine country. Payne and Oh divorced two years later.
Payne then directed a segment of 2006’s Paris, I Love You and that same year’s video, Cinema 16: American Short Films. In 2009 he directed an episode of the TV series, Hung. His first feature film since Sideways was 2011’s The Descendants, a comedy-drama about an Hawaiian land baron reconnecting with his two daughters in the wake of his wife’s serious injury in a boating accident. The film received five Oscar nominations, three of them for Payne for Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay. He won his second Oscar for the latter; the film’s only win.
The director’s next film, 2013’s Nebraska, a drama with comic undertones about an elderly, booze-addled man chasing a sweepstakes prize, received six Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Director, Actor (Bruce Dern), Supporting Actress (June Squibb), Original Screenplay, and Cinematography. Payne’s seventh nomination for Best Director is his last to date. His next film, 2017’s Downsizing was a critical and commercial flop. He was married to second wife, Maria Kontos, from 2015-2022.
Payne rebounded professionally with 2023’s The Holdovers for which he is a DGA (Directors Guild of America) nominee for Best Director, but not an Oscar nominee despite the film’s five Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Actor (Paul Giamatti), Supporting Actress (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), Original Screenplay, and Film Editing.
Now that he’s back with his hit film about a schoolteacher, one can hope that he will continue to provide us with more great comedy-dramas to sink our teeth into.
Alexander Payne will be 63 on February 10.
ESSENTIAL FILMS
ABOUT SCHMIDT (2002)
Payne tickled the funny bone with his first two films. He went straight for the heart with his third, an acerbic comedy-drama about a recently retired widower who travels cross country to attend his estranged daughter’s wedding. Jack Nicolson received his twelfth and final Oscar nod for the role, surprised for winning the Golden Glone for Best Actor-Comedy, thinking that he had made a comedy. Kathy Bates received the third of her four Oscar nods to date for playing the former hippie mother of the groom who tries to seduce him. Hope Davis plays his daughter and Dermot Mulroney plays the groom. Angela Lansbury has a voiceover cameo.
SIDEWAYS (2004)
Payne’s most acclaimed film is about a couple of middle-aged friends (Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church) who take a trip through California’s Santa Ynez wine country prior to the wedding of one of them. Giamatti, unexpectedly left out of 2003’s Oscar nominations for 2003’s American Splendor, was again left out of the Oscar nominations for his wine aficionado in this film despite having been nominated for just about every other film award. Church and Virginia Madsen were nominated for their supporting roles, but Sanra Oh, who was married to Payne at the time, was also ignored. Payne was nominated for Best Director.
THE DESCENDANTS (2011)
Payne, who had won his first Oscar for Election received three Oscar nominations for this film (Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay), winning his second in the latter category. George Clooney, who Payne turned down for the lead in Sideways for being too famous, received six Oscar nominations and a win for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana in the interim, earning his seventh nod for this film in which he pays a well-to-do father reconnecting with his teenage daughters including Oscar nominee Shailene Woodley. He would go on to win a second Oscar on his eighth nomination as producer of 2012’s Argo.
NEBRASKA (2013)
Another film about another trip, highlighting an actor in a career triumph earning major awards recognition for the actor, this one going to the father of the actress who starred in his first film, Laura Dern’s father, Bruce Dern who received a Best Actor nomination for playing an elderly, booze-addled man convinced that he had won a sweepstakes prize and only had to travel from Montana to Nebraska to collect it. Accompanied by Will Forte as his estranged son, June Squibb who played Jack Nicolson’s late wife’s mother in About Schmidt played Dern’s wife in this one. Payne was nominated for Best Director.
THE HOLDOVERS (2023)
Paul Giamatti, whose late father was president of Yale University, plays a schoolteacher in this one in which he oversees the group of prep school students who are unable to go home during the 1970 -1971 Christmas holidays. Giamatti is at his acerbic best in his Oscar nominated performance opposite newcomer Dominic Sessa as the student with parental issues and Oscar nominee Da’Vine Joy Randolph as the school’s cook who has just lost her only son in the Vietnam war. Payne has been nominated for Best Director at the DGA but has been left off the Oscar list despite the film’s nomination for Best Picture.
ALEXANDER PAYNE AND OSCAR
Election (1999) – nominated – Best Adapted Screenplay
Sideways (2004) – Oscar – Best Adapted Screenplay
Sideways (2004) – nominated – Best Director
The Descendants (2011) – Oscar – Best Adapted Screenplay
The Descendants (2011) – nominated – Best Director
The Descendants (2011) – nominated – Best Picture
Nebraska (2013) – nominated – Best Director
