Biography

Retired due to Alzheimers.

His father was a Los Angeles public school teacher. Hanson said he is approached all the time by former students of his father, Mr. Hanson. They always have kind things to say about his dad.

He has directed one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: L.A. Confidential (1997).

Directed one Oscar-winning performance: Kim Basinger in L.A. Confidential (1997).

After dropping out of high school in his senior year, he became the entertainment editor for the Cal State L.A. campus newspaper, despite the fact that he was not a student there. His uncle owned a magazine called "Cinema", where Hanson worked as a gofer and eventually became editor and art director. He interviewed many Hollywood legends, including John Ford, Vincente Minnelli, William Wyler and Dalton Trumbo.

[after receiving the Best Screenplay Oscar from Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon] Being given this Award by two actors I will always associate with Billy Wilder makes it all the sweeter.

All directors are egomaniacs.

For me, all good stories are about awareness. Self-awareness and lack of it, of how you get there and how you might fail to get there. Even Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is about that to a degree. People discover who they are and what they're all about by meeting their doppelgängers. I have deliberately tried to mix it up in my movies, because I enjoy visiting different worlds. However, thematically, I find that things keep coming up. Self-examination to begin with. You know, who am I, how did I get here and how do I become a better version of myself. Self-destructiveness, because that is the beginning or negation of self-examination.

Sure I believe people can change, and change for the better. I mean if you don't believe that then what are you left with? It's literally the same old, the same old. People can and do change, often for the better. Things change. If I didn't believe in that I wouldn't see the point. In any of it.

I like the movie to be about the movie and to allow people to think about the movie the way I always thought about movies I watched and admired. I'm old enough that I grew up before there was so much talk by directors and about directors. It was left more to the viewer. The thought of my voice running along while people are watching the movie silently, that doesn't appeal to me. When they're watching the movie I want them to watch the movie, not be distracted listening to me or other people.