Christopher Nolan

                      

                       Christopher Nolan

Nolan was born in London. His British father, Brendan James Nolan, was an advertising executive, and his American mother, Christina (née Jensen), worked as a flight attendant and English teacher. His childhood was split between London and Chicago, and he has both British and American citizenship. He has an older brother, Matthew, and a younger brother, Jonathan. Nolan began making films at age seven, borrowing his father's Super 8 camera and shooting short films with his action figures. From the age of 11, he aspired to be a professional filmmaker.

Nolan was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College, an independent school in Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire, and later read English literature at University College London (UCL). He chose UCL specifically for its filmmaking facilities, which comprised a Steenbeck editing suite and 16 mm film cameras. Nolan was president of the Union's Film Society, and with Emma Thomas (his girlfriend and future producer) he screened 35 mm feature films during the school year and used the money earned to produce 16 mm films over the summers.

During his college years, Nolan made two short films. The first was the surreal 8 mm Tarantella (1989), which was shown on Image Union (an independent film and video showcase on the Public Broadcasting Service). The second was Larceny (1995), filmed over a weekend in black and white with a limited cast, crew, and equipment. Funded by Nolan and shot with the society's equipment, it appeared at the Cambridge Film Festival in 1996 and is considered one of UCL's best shorts.

PERSONAL LIFE:

Nolan and his wife Emma Thomas in January 2011

Nolan is married to Emma Thomas, whom he met at University College London when he was 19. She has worked as a producer on all of his films, and together they founded the production company Syncopy Inc. The couple have four children and reside in Los Angeles.

Nolan prefers not to use a cell phone saying "It's not that I'm a luddite and don't like technology; I've just never been interested. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1997, nobody really had cell phones, and I just never went down that path."