Richard Linklater

Born: July 30 1960
Where: Houston, Texas, USA

The self-taught writer-director was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s.

Highlights of a constantly challenging career include Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise and Waking Life...and he also contributed "slacker" to the national lexicon.

However, he has recently moved closer to the Hollywood mainstream with the comedy School of Rock with Jack Black.

Linklater suspended his educational career at Sam Houston State University in 1982, to work on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

He subsequently relocated to Austin, where he founded a film society and began work on his debut short film, 1987's It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books.

He first attracted attention with his 24-hour comedy drama snapshot of underclass life, Slacker, in 1991.

Dazed and Confused - his drama about students on the first and last days of school - boasted fledgling acting talent like Ben Affleck and Milla Jovovich.

Typically setting each of his movies during one 24-hour period, Linklater's work explored what he dubbed "the youth rebellion continuum."

In 1995, adhering to the life in a day method of film-making, he followed young lovers Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Before Sunrise.

Empty teenage lives were addressed in SubUrbia and Linklater adopted more traditional subject matter for robbery caper The Newton Boys.

Waking Life - a cartoon featuring various talking heads - showed a return to more challenging work as was the three-hander Tape with Uma Thurman.

School of Rock showed Linklater's most box office friendly face yet with Black well cast as the teacher with a hard rock obsession.

Recent work includes the well-received sequel to Before Sunrise - Before Sunset - with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------