Getty Director Sam Mendes poses for a picture on the red carpet.
Sam Mendes is the director of the film 1917, which was nominated for 10 Oscars at the 92nd Academy Awards. The 2020 Oscars are taking place on Sunday, February 9 at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.
1917 shows the story of two young fighters who are tasked with a dangerous, almost-impossible mission to stop a planned massacre. The description on the Internet Movie Database adds, “April 6th, 1917. As a regiment assembles to wage war deep in enemy territory, two soldiers are assigned to race against time and deliver a message that will stop 1,600 men from walking straight into a deadly trap.”
Mendes is no stranger to the Academy Awards. He directed American Beauty (1999), which earned him the Oscar (and a Golden Globe) for Best Director. This year, he’s up for the same title with 1917. If that BAFTAs are any indicator, Mendes and 1917 could walk away as the big winners of Sunday’s event. The nerve-wrenching war drama took home seven awards, including a best director award for Mendes.
“In the midst of all this hoopla and stuff, it’s sometimes easy to forget the actual experience of shooting a movie, and I had a kind of director’s paradise in this film that I think I will never, ever have again,” he said during his acceptance speech. “So I want to say a real thank you to the people who actually helped me make this film.”
“And, yes, it’s a war movie that we made, but it’s also a movie about home and about family, so it’s moving for me to get this in my hometown for the first time, and to be able to say thank you to my beautiful family,” he continued.
To find out more about Mendes, continue reading below for five fast facts:
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1. Mendes Was Married to Kate Winslet for 7 Years
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GettyKate Winslet and Sam Mendes maintained that their split was amicable.
Mendes and the Titanic star married in secret during a trip to Anguilla in May 2003. “We hadn’t been planning to do it,” Winslet said at the time, according to The Guardian. “But we thought it was rather a good idea, so we just did it.”
They tried to keep their private life hidden from the public. “As a family we do normal things that other families would,” she said. “It’s important to us that the children are just regular kids, so we go to the park, kick a ball around, go to a museum, watch a movie together or just hang out at home playing Monopoly.”
They have one son together, Joe, who was born the same year they married during a beach ceremony.
Just as secretly as they got together, they split up. The celebrity couple announced their split through their lawyer. “Kate and Sam are saddened to announce that they separated earlier this year,” said they said in a public statement. “The split is entirely amicable and is by mutual agreement. Both parties are fully committed to the future joint parenting of their children.”
2. Rumors Swirled Mendes Cheated on Winslet With Rebecca Hall
Rebecca Hall and Sam Mendes are pictured together in 2007, four years before they started dating.
Mendes started to date Hall after his breakup with Winslet, though it might not have been as clean of a break as they made it seem. Mendes cast Hall in two of his theater productions. Allegations claimed that Hall and Mendes started to become close and Winslet resented their relationship.
Publicly, Mendes denied the accusations. He called them “utter nonsense,” E! Online reported. Mendes added the cheating rumors were “untrue and ridiculous.”
But what was true was that Mendes and Hall did publicly date afterward, with their relationship being confirmed in November 2011. Their relationship last until 2015. Hall moved on with fellow actor Morgan Spector. In 2017, Mendes married his current wife, musician Alison Balsom.
3. 1917 Could Give Him His Second Oscar
Mendes has been making movies for more than 20 years. According to his IMDb.com profile, he is best known for 1917, Skyfall, Road to Perdition and Revolutionary Road, which cast his then-wife Winslet against her fellow Titanic star, Leonardo DiCaprio. In addition to Skyfall, he also directed Spectre. Both James Bond films were blockbusters at the global box office.
He hasn’t won an Oscar since American Beauty, though, in total, he’s won 55 awards and snagged 65 nominations. If previous award shows are any indicator, 2020 could be the year he takes home his second Academy Award. He won best directing awards at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs.
In 2000, Mendes was “overwhelmed” when he won the Oscar. “I want to say huge respect, first of all, to my fellow nominees,” he said in his acceptance speech. “It’s an honor to be in your company, genuinely. It’s an honor to be here. I want to say thank you to an astonishing young studio, DreamWorks, for having the courage to hire a bloke from English theatre to do a movie about American suburbia, and then trusting him.”
4. Mendes Was Knighted by in Queen Elizabeth II
That’s “Sir Sam,” to you. Mendes was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in December 2019 for her annual New Year’s Honors List after buzz about 1917 took off. He was acknowledged alongside Steve McQueen and Olivia Newton-John for his “services to drama.”
According to the BBC, Mendes was “amazed, delighted and extremely proud” to ne knighted by the queen.
He thanked the colleagues who contributed to his work. “I have stood on the shoulders of so many collaborators and colleagues over the last 30 years—actors, writers, designers, producers, technicians—to whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude,” he said. “I would not be receiving this honor without them.”
5. He’s a ‘Brilliant’ Cricket Player
GettySam Mendes was first known as a great cricket player before he broke into movies.
While Mendes is best known for being a Hollywood movie director, he’s also a great cricket player. In fact, when he won his Oscar in 2000, The Guardian’s headline about Mendes read “Village cricketer wins Oscar.” He taught cricket at Summer Fields Prep School in Oxford, according to ESPN Crici Info, and helped his team get to the Village Championship final at Lord’s in 1997.
Most recently, he was chosen to join 2019 Cricket World Cup as an independent director on the board, according to The Evening Standard. Mendes’ background in film is one of the reasons he was chosen. “With his love of cricket and his background in film and creative, he would be the perfect fit to help guide and shape the tournament and give us insight and advice into planning,” tournament director Steve Elworthy told Standard Sport in May 2018. “He was all too happy to get involved, and he has some great ideas which we are floating now.”
In September 2018, he played a celebrity cricket match for charity. The fundraisers were to raise money for churches in Great & Little Tew and Heythrop, according to the Oxford Mail.
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