Lasse Hallström

Lars Sven "Lasse" Hallström (Swedish: [ˈlâsːɛ ˈhâlːstrœm]; born 2 June 1946) is a Swedish film director. He first became known for directing almost all music videos by the pop group ABBA, and came to international attention with his 1985 feature film My Life as a Dog, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. He is also known for What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), The Cider House Rules (1999), and Chocolat (2000).

Lars Sven "Lasse" Hallström was born on 2 June 1946 in Stockholm, Sweden. His father was a dentist and keen amateur videographer; his mother was the author and poet Karin Lyberg.

He attended Adolf Fredrik's Music School in Stockholm, where he made his first music video and 8 mm films.

In the late 1960s, Hallström worked as a director of short pop music clips at Sveriges Television.

He made his directorial debut in 1973, directing the comedy series Pappas pojkar for Swedish TV. He frequently collaborated with comic actors Magnus Härenstam and Brasse Brännström during his Swedish period.

Between 1974 and 1982, Hallström worked with the Swedish group ABBA on many of their music videos and also directed their 1977 film ABBA: The Movie. Almost all of ABBA's promotional films were directed and shot by Hallström, with only seven exceptions: "When I Kissed the Teacher" (1977); "Chiquitita" (1979), which was made by the BBC; "I Have a Dream" (1979); "On and On and On" (1980); "Lay All Your Love on Me" (1981); "The Day Before You Came" (1982), and "Under Attack" (1982), the latter two being directed by Kjell Sundvall and Kjell-Åke Andersson.

After the international success of My Life as a Dog (1985), Hallström started working in Hollywood. His first English-language film was Once Around (1991). His first notable English-language success was What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), starring Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Hallström made a number of successful film adaptations from novels. In 1999, The Cider House Rules was released. He followed that success the following year by directing Chocolat, starring Johnny Depp, Juliette Binoche, and Judi Dench, which was a critical and box-office success. His 2001 film The Shipping News was adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by E. Annie Proulx and starred Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench, Julianne Moore, and Cate Blanchett.