American Beauty (1999 film) "American Beauty" to the fledgling DreamWorks studio, which bought the script for $250,000, outbidding several other production bodies. DreamWorks financed the $15 million production and served as its North American distributor. "American Beauty" marked theater director Mendes' film debut; courted after his successful productions of the musicals "Oliver!" and "Cabaret", Mendes was only given the job after 20 others were considered and several A-list directors turned down the opportunity. Spacey was Mendes' first choice for the role of Lester, though DreamWorks urged him to consider better-known actors; similarly, the studio suggested several actors for the role of Carolyn until Mendes
Carolyn Rouse in the people around her, which prompted a turn toward documentary film, then eventually a master's in visual anthropology and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Southern California. Rouse's siblings are both academics; her brother is a professor of physics and her sister, Cecilia Rouse, is the dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Rouse's brother-in-law (Cecilia's husband) is Ford Morrison, son of Nobel Prize-winning author and Princeton professor emeritus Toni Morrison. Carolyn Rouse Carolyn Moxley Rouse (born c. 1965) is an anthropologist, professor and filmmaker. She is Professor and Chair of the Department