Sam Mendes

Samuel Alexander Mendes CBE is an Academy Award-winning English stage and film director. As a stage director, he is probably best known for his 1998 production of Cabaret, starring Alan Cumming. As a film director, he is best known for his debut film, American Beauty, for which he won an Academy Award for Directing. In 2000, Mendes was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He is of a Portuguese father and an English Jewish mother.