3. Who is Lasse Hallstorm?
Lasse Hallström was born Lars Sven Hallström on June 2, 1946, in Stockholm, Sweden.
Hallström, who directed his first short film at the age of 10, began his professional
career in Swedish television. He directed a number of music videos, most notably for
the Swedish pop phenomenon ABBA, before moving to full-length TV programs.
Hallström's feature film directorial debut came in 1975 with A Guy and A Gal. In 1977,
he wrote, produced and directed the well-rated documentary performance film ABBA:
The Movie.
4. Hallström first came to the attention of American audiences with the release of "My
Life As A Dog," which he wrote and directed. The film, which follows the adventures of
a resilient 12 year old-boy in an eccentric country village, earned universal praise for
its winsome warmth and poignancy and garnered Hallström Oscar nominations for
Best Director and Best Screenplay. The New York Film Critics also named "My Life As A
Dog" as Best Foreign Film.
5. Next up for the director was "Once Around," a
romantic comedy starring Holly Hunter as a repressed
Boston woman who is swept off her feet by an obnoxious
salesman millionaire played by Richard Dreyfuss. This was
followed by the 1993 hit film "What's Eating Gilbert
Grape?," the offbeat tale of a young who holds the
troubled Grape family together. The film brought
recognition to a young Leonardo DiCaprio, who earned an
Oscar nomination for his role as Johnny Depp's autistic
younger brother. Hallström then directed "Something to
Talk About," starring Julia Roberts, Dennis Quaid, Gena
Rowlands, Robert Duvall and Kyra Sedgewick in the story
of two generations of a tumultuous Southern family.
6. Lasse Hallstorm has directed a lot of romantic movies
in his life. Some of them are very popular.
DEAR JOHN
Dear John is a 2010 American romantic drama-war film starring Amanda
Seyfried and Channing Tatum. It was made by Screen Gems, a Sony company. It was released
theatrically in North America on February 5, 2010. The film was directed by Lasse Hallström,
and it is an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks's novel of the same name. It follows the life of a
soldier (Channing Tatum) after he falls in love with a young woman (Amanda Seyfried). They
decide to exchange letters to each other after he is deployed to the war. The movie was
filmed in 2009 in Charleston, South Carolina.
7. SAFE HAVEN
Safe Haven is a 2013 American romance film starring Julianne Hough, Josh
Duhamel and Cobie Smulders. It was released theatrically in North America on February 14,
2013. The film was directed by Lasse Hallström, and is an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks
'novel of the same name. The film was originally set for a February 8 release, but was moved
to February 14, 2013. The film was widely panned by critics, but was nonetheless financially
successful with a worldwide gross of $97.6 million against its $28 million budget.
8. CHOCOLAT
Chocolat (French pronunciation: [ʃɔkɔla]) is a 2000 American-British drama film based on
the novel of the same name by Joanne Harris, and was directed by Lasse Hallström. Adapted
by screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs, Chocolat tells the story of a young mother, played
by Juliette Binoche, who arrives at the fictional, repressed French village of Lansquenet-sous-
Tannes with her six-year-old daughter and opens La Chocolaterie Maya, a small
chocolaterie. lat Her chocolate quickly begins to change the lives of the townspeople.
9. CASANOVA
Casanova is a 2005 American romantic film directed by Lasse Hallström starring Heath
Ledger and loosely based on the life of Giacomo Casanova.