You may not know his name at first, but chances are you've seen one of his amazing movies.
Luc Besson is a french director who has an impressive portfolio of film projects including The Fifth Element, Leon: The Professional, La Femme Nikita, The Family, The Transporter and the recently-released Lucy, among many, many others.
With over 50 films in total spanning over 26 years, Besson has oftentimes been referred to as 'the John Hughes of action movies'. His style consists of highly-stylized action with visually-rich environments and memorable characters.
Born in Paris in 1959 to a pair of scuba diving instructors, Besson naturally wanted to become a marine biologist. When he was 17 however, a diving accident left him unable to dive for the rest of his life:
"I was 17 and I wondered what I was going to do. ... So I took a piece of paper and on the left I put everything I could do, or had skills for, and all the things I couldn't do. The first line was shorter and I could see that I loved writing, I loved images, I was taking a lot of pictures. So I thought maybe movies would be good. But I thought that to really know I should go to a set. And a friend of mine knew a guy whose brother was a third assistant on a short film. It's true," he said in a 2000 interview with The Guardian.
"So, I said: 'OK, let's go on the set.' So I went on the set...The day after I went back to see my mum and told her that I was going to make films and stop school and 'bye. And I did it! Very soon after I made a short film and it was very, very bad. I wanted to prove that I could do something, so I made a short film. That was in fact my main concern, to be able to show that I could do one."
...And over 50 action-packed films later he has proven that not only was he able to do just "one", he has been able to create his own iconic style that few... if any, action movie directors can match.
On Thursday, Besson plugged into Reddit for one of their AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions to answer some questions about his life and career, including some more philosophical questions relating to his films.
If you're a fan of Besson's, you'll know that he regularly shuns the media attention in favor of a more private life, so the fact that he's answering these questions is kind of a big deal.
You can read the full Luc Besson AMA on Reddit.
