Terrence Malick Biography

Fast Facts

• Worked on farms and oil wells growing up in Texas and Oklahoma
• Was a star linebacker on his prep-school football team
• Did graduate work in philosophy at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship; studied literature at the Sorbonne in Paris
• Taught philosophy at MIT and worked as a magazine writer (for Life and Newsweek) in the late 1960s
• Was a member of the AFI Center for Advanced Film Studies' first graduating class
• Wrote an early draft of Dirty Harry (1971)
• Financed directorial debut (1973's Badlands) independently, with help from one of his brothers
• Much of Days of Heaven, the 1978 Oscar winner for cinematography, was filmed between sunset and nightfall because of the rich and fleeting quality of the natural light at that time of day
• Took a 20-year directing hiatus after Days of Heaven, living in Paris much of the time; his comeback film, 1998's The Thin Red Line, earned seven Oscar nominations (but didn't win any)
• Hobbies include birdwatching