Early life Anderson was born in
Madison, Connecticut, the son of Pamela Taylor Anderson, a community services administrator. He is the nephew of
Emmy Award-winning actress
Holland Taylor. Before he began his film career, he attended
Bowdoin College, where he
majored in
anthropology and Russian. He then went to London to finish his film education at
London Film School before returning to Boston.
Film career Anderson started out writing and directing the romantic comedies
The Darien Gap (1996),
Next Stop Wonderland (1998) and
Happy Accidents (2000), all of which premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival. His next film was the 2001
psychological horror film
Session 9. Unsuccessful at the box office, the film has since gained a
cult following. In 2002, Anderson was a member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival. This was followed by his most notable work to date,
The Machinist (2004), starring
Christian Bale. The film became well known for Bales' dramatic weight loss (62 pounds) for the lead role, and for its screenplay, written by
Scott Kosar. His next two films were
TransSiberian (2008), a thriller starring
Woody Harrelson,
Emily Mortimer and
Ben Kingsley and the horror film
Vanishing on 7th Street (2010), starring
Hayden Christensen,
John Leguizamo and
Thandiwe Newton. Notably, both
TransSiberian and
The Machinist were funded by Anglo-German production companies. At one point, he was also one of the candidates to direct the sequel to
Paranormal Activity. In 2013, Anderson directed
The Call, a thriller starring
Halle Berry and
Abigail Breslin. This was followed by
Stonehearst Asylum (aka Eliza Graves) in 2014, with
Kate Beckinsale,
Jim Sturgess,
David Thewlis and
Ben Kingsley in the leading roles. In 2018, Anderson directed the espionage thriller
Beirut, which stars
Jon Hamm and
Rosamund Pike, and in 2019, he directed the
Netflix thriller film
Fractured, starring
Sam Worthington,
Lily Rabe,
Stephen Tobolowsky and
Adjoa Andoh, which was released on October 11.
Television work Anderson has directed numerous episodes of
Fringe, as well as two episodes each of
The Wire,
The Killing, and
Boardwalk Empire. Anderson was one of the contributors to the horror series
Masters of Horror, directing the season two episode "
Sounds Like". Anderson directed the pilot episode of the
ABC prime time series
Forever. He also directed the pilot episode of CBS's
Zoo. Anderson directed episodes of
Clickbait for
Netflix.
Future projects Anderson replaced Joseph Ruben as director of Bold Films thriller
Jack in May 2010, and cast
John Cusack for the lead, who has since been replaced by
Liev Schreiber. Anderson was supposed to direct
The Living and the Dead, based on the novel of the same name by Robert Tinnell and Todd Livingston. As of 2024,"Jack" had not appeared. After working together on
The Machinist, Anderson and
Christian Bale have had plans to collaborate again on an adaptation of
J. G. Ballard's novel
Concrete Island. Anderson is slated to direct
Peter Dinklage in the title role in an adaptation of Nobel prize winning author
Pär Lagerkvist's novel
The Dwarf. ==Filmography==