Notes from Evan Smith
"Tim McCanlies, who wrote and directed the film
Seconhand Lions, pursued a career in Hollywood as a writer and then a director."I'm sort of unusual in that I'm a writer, by trade, and then only recently a director, so I've sort of made it twice I guess," McCanlies told
FlixUSA.com.
He went to the University of Texas at Austin for film school and then to Texas A&M to major in drama and then SMU in Dallas for graduate school.
While in Dallas he worked at the police department and while there he enrolled in the graduate film program at SMU.
"So, I was film student with a gun, a deadly combination," he said.
Once he finished graduate school, in film and creative writing, he went to Los Angeles. In L.A. he was working as a computer programmer when his first script was optioned. That led to a deal with Disney where he worked as a writer-for-hire for two years.
He went on to write and direct
Dancer, Texas Pop. 81. He also wrote screenplays for
The Iron Giant,
North Shore and
Dennis the Menace Strikes Again.
He currently lives on a ranch outside of Austin. " - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 9.20.03
