Modine, Matthew 1959-

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Modine, Matthew 1959-

(Matthew Avery Modine)

PERSONAL: Born March 22, 1959, in Loma Linda, CA; son of Mark (a manager of drive-in theaters) and Dolores (a bookkeeper) Modine; married Caridad Rivera, October 31, 1980; children: Bowman, Ruby.

ADDRESSES: Agent—Untitled Entertainment NY, 451 Greenwich St., 7th Fl., New York, NY 10013.

CAREER: Actor director, editor, producer, cinematographer, and writer. Appeared in numerous films, including Baby It’s You, Paramount, 1983;Private School, Universal, 1983;Streamers, United Artists, 1983;The Hotel New Hampshire, Orion, 1984;Mrs. Soffel, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists, 1984;Birdy, TriStar, 1984;Vision Quest (also known as Crazy for You), Warner Bros., 1987;Full Metal Jacket (also known as Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket), Warner Bros., 1987;Orphans, Lorimar, 1987;Married to the Mob, Orion, 1987;Gross Anatomy (also known as A Cut Above), Buena Vista, 1989;La partita (also known as The Gamble), CG Reteitalia/Warner Bros., 1988;Memphis Belle, Warner Bros., 1990;Pacific Heights, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1990;The Lemon Sisters, Miramax, 1991;Wind, TriStar, 1992;Equinox (also known as Isimeria), IRS Releasing, 1993;Short Cuts, Fine Line, 1993;The Browning Version, Paramount, 1994;Bye Bye, Love, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1995;Cutthroat Island (also known as Corsari, Die Piratenbraut and L’ile aux pirates), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists, 1995; (voice) Fluke, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1995;The Real Blonde, Paramount, 1997;The Blackout, Trimark, 1997;Notting Hill, MCA/Universal, 1999;Any Given Sunday (also known as Any Given Sunday, Gridiron, Monday Night, On Any Given Sunday, The League, and Playing Hurt), Warner Bros., 1999;Very Mean Men, Miracle Entertainment, 2000;Bamboozled, New Line Cinema, 2000;Nobody’s Baby, 2001;In the Shadows, Lions Gate Films, 2001;The Shipment, Promark Entertainment Group, 2001;Hollywood North, 2003;Funky Monkey, 2004;Transporter 2, 2005;Mary, 2005; and Opa!, 2005. Director, producer, editor, and cinematographer for Smoking, Pyramide International, 1993; director of the play Twelve Angry Men, New Mercury Theatre. Also acted in numerous television movies (including And the Band Played On, HBO), specials, series, and miniseries; appeared in the stage production Breaking Up, 1990, and Resurrection Blues, c. 2005.

AWARDS, HONORS: Best Actor Golden Lion Award (shared), 1984, for performance in Streamers; Volpi Cup for Best Ensemble Cast and Golden Globe for Best Ensemble cast (shared), for performance in Shortcuts; Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations, for performance in And the Band Played On.

WRITINGS

When I Was a Boy (screenplay), Mercury Film, 1993.

(And director and actor) If . . . Dog . . . Rabbit . . ., (screenplay), Franchise Pictures, 1998.

Full Metal Jacket Diary (memoir), Rugged Land (New York, NY), 2005.

Also author of the screenplay for the film Ecce Pirate, 1997.

SIDELIGHTS: With his limited-edition book Full Metal Jacket Diary, which has a metal cover, actor Matthew Modine records his experiences making the Stanley Kubrick Vietnam war film Full Metal Jacket. Aided by numerous photographs taken by Modine during filming, the author recounts his nearly two years working on the film via a diary he kept at the time. In his book, Modine, who has also written several screenplays, discusses the famous director Kubrick and his process for making films. The author also writes of his own experiences, including eating leftover army food rations from the Vietnam war. “It’s the portrait of an actor as a young man, someone going through a heart of darkness,” Modine told Kevin Filipski in an article on the Go Brooklyn Web site. “I was like Gilligan, but I was lost on an island called England. First it was three months, then six months, and then it became two whole years out of my life. It was a real interesting journey.” In an article on the Filmmaker Web site, a contributor wrote that the book “alternates between screenplay format and military-style dispatches, with the images presented in both standard and collage form.” A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that “the work succeeds in expressing Modine’s attitude—‘I’m going to make you feel the horror of death.’”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

BOOKS

Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, Volume 45, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 2002.

Modine, Matthew, Full Metal Jacket Diary, Rugged Land (New York, NY), 2005.

PERIODICALS

Chicago Sun-Times, November 25, 2005, Bill Zwecker, “Face Time: Q&A with Matthew Modine.”

Daily News (New York, NY), October 25, 2005, “‘Full Metal’ Casting Call.”

Publishers Weekly, August 8, 2005, review of Full Metal Jacket Diary, p. 224.

ONLINE

Filmmaker, http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/ (November 25, 2006), review of Full Metal Jacket Diary.

Go Brooklyn, http://www.go-brooklyn.com/ (November 25, 2006), Kevin Filipski, “‘Jacket Required,’” review of Full Metal Jacket Diary.

Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/ (November 25, 2006), information on author’s film work.

Mathew Modine Home Page, http://www.matthewmodine.com (November 25, 2006).*