ALWAYS good to see an old boy remembering his roots, so the Diary is charmed to hear of award-laden American Beauty director Sam Mendes’s visit to his old school just before his rewarding trip to the Oscars.
Sam popped into Magdalen College School in Oxford to chat to pupils about life in Hollywood and as artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse in London, we learn from the Oxford Journal, the school’s local paper.
Mre interesting is a prescient excerpt reprinted from an old cricketing programme - Sam used to captain the private school’s first XI - which reveals his early ambition was “to be remembered by many”. That, of course, will depend on his next movie (short memories, film-goers).
The teenage Sam listed his interests: not actresses and fast cars, but “Danny Kaye films and fishnet tights”. Expect a musical follow-up.
