Robert Luketic

ROBERT LUKETIC

Date of Birth: 1973

Growing up in Australia, Robert Luketic began making films at an early age. When he won the "Best Film Award" at the ATOM Film Festival held at Chauvel Cinema in Paddington at the age of 15, he promised himself that he would make a major Hollywood picture by the time he was 30. In 1994, he was accepted into the Victorian College of Arts School of Film and Television, one of Australia's most prestigious film schools. After only one year, he was backed for two consecutive years by sponsors AVID Technology and Samuelson Film Services.

In 1996 Luketic wrote and directed the short film Titsiana Booberini, a story about an ugly duckling supermarket cashier who finds how to make her life happier in the store's cosmetics aisle. He won the Queen Elizabeth II Trust Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film as well as the Best Film Award at the Aspen Shortsfest for his work. After the film screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Luketic soon found himself an agent and a manager and attention from several studios. He made the move to Los Angeles to break into Hollywood films and read scripts for two years before deciding to make his feature film directorial debut at the age of 29 in 2001 with the hilarious comedy Legally Blonde, starring Reese Witherspoon. Made on a $20 million budget, the movie was a huge hit at the box office and earned a Golden Globe nomination for "Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy" as well as a 2001 Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie of the Summer.

Luketic next directed the comedy Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004), followed by Monster-in-Law, a comedy starring Jennifer Lopez as a woman who begins to rethink her engagement when she meets her fiancé's mother, played by Jane Fonda. His next film, the drama 21, about a group of college students who beat the casino system, did well at the box office, as did his next film, the romantic comedy The Ugly Truth, starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. He worked with Heigl again on the action comedy, Killers (2010), also starring Ashton Kutcher. His latest directorial flick is Paranoia (2013)starring Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman.