Rhys Daniel Harrison was born in 1965 to a family that was already making its name in Hollywood. Rhys's father Gordon Harrison was a producer and director, working on some of the best science fiction films to date, and Rhys's mother Leah was a screenwriter -- writing most of Gordon's films before they both retired from the business. Because of how they were as a family, the Harrison children were thrown into the spotlight at an early age. Rhys was the first born, followed by John and Tom. Rhys was the first to jump into the industry. Studying film at UCLA, he started as an assistant on his father's films, and his mother helped him in writing his own scripts for little films he made at home using the old video recorder that they had. The Harrison brothers were always interested in fantasy and science fiction, writing about saving the world (or destroying it) and from an early age Rhys was hooked. Even before getting into college, Rhys let his imagination get the best of him. He talked about people beating their inner demons, he talked about people rising up and joining forces, he talked about the idea of there being supernatural beings out there walking among us. His parents, instead of being worried that his imagination was a bit strong for a child his age, encouraged it. It was those encouragements that lead Rhys into film and writing, taking the talents that both his parents had to offer and put their teachings to good use. By the time Rhys turned 18 he had written a story called MY BEST FRIEND'S BIRTHDAY that ended up being a black-and-white amateur film. The script was simple: the story followed a young man who continually tries to do something nice for his friend's birthday, only to have all of his efforts completely backfire in the oddest of ways. Getting a friend to help him, Rhys shot the film over the course of the next four years while he tried to get his degree settled and enough money to make his own name for himself. They gave the film a budget for $5,000 and got a lot of their friends and family (including two of Rhys' brothers) to be in the film. Finally around 1987, when Rhys turned 22, the film was completed and cut into a 70 minute long film. That was, until his co-director's garage caught fire thanks to his little brother doing something stupid, and the film ended up being partly destroyed. 36 minutes of the film survived, but those 36 minutes are minutes that Rhys constantly watched. He viewed it as his film school, his first real attempt at getting into the business with his own writing, and while he sort of despised the whole film (or what was left of it), it got him thinking he could do bigger and better things. So, that was what Rhys set out to do.

Rhys finished his film degree from UCLA in 1988 and from there immediately went on to work on a new script. It was going to be about a group of misfit robbers who nothing about each other, only that they all know the boss they were working for. At the time, Rhys had gotten into crime films, specifically heist films and wanted to do one of his own. Only, he wanted to do something different. He didn't want to show the heist. Rhys' father told him it wasn't going to be done, and that the idea was something that wasn't going to work -- people like to see the trouble the characters get into, he said, they want to know why they should care about them. Rhys didn't care. He had recently become fascinated with Ringo Lam's City On Fire, and the elements in that, and wanted to do a variation of his own. The script was finished and Rhys told his friends about RESERVOIR DOGS, and he planned on getting his friends to join the cast and crew, using a budget of $30,000 in a 16 mm format. All of that wound change though -- without Rhys knowing, a famous actor had become interested, thanks to the encouragement of Gordon Harrison. Actor Harvey Keitel soon became involved, passionately talking to Rhys about the script and how much he loved it, and with Harvey's help, they were able to get a budge of $1.5 million to make the film -- and get actors that were understandably much better than his friends. The film released in 1992 and only to about 61 theaters across the country, but it was good enough for Rhys. He had been bitten by the bug, finding that this was far better than he thought it could be, and already started to work on his next script: PULP FICTION.

PULP FICTION ended up being the biggest film Rhys had done. The cast of actors were unlike anyone that Rhys had ever had the chance to work with before, and thanks to the buzz the film got, people went in hunt for his previous two films to get acquainted with those. PULP FICTION got Rhys an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, and a nomination for Best Director. It got him the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It got him a Golden Globe win for Best Screenplay, and a nomination for Best Director. It was the most acclaim that Rhys had ever received in his life, and surprisingly, it didn't go to his head. If anything, it pushed Rhys to write whatever the hell he wanted, because he had made a name for himself that didn't involve being "The Son of Gordon Harrison". It felt good to do something that he wanted to do, and not have to change things because there wasn't trust in his writing or directing. Rhys' career was going up, and he loved it. People were lining up to work with him, and he was able to work with everyone he wanted to work with. He had a feeling of privileged because of all of this, but tried his best not to show it. With his career on the rise, he thought it was only best to help out those who were looking to make films and get them started, exactly what had happened with him. He took on a few directors, two of which he ended up becoming very good friends with, and agreed to produce and present their films, if it meant more people would see them. He wanted to help others how he had been helped in the industry, but he also wanted to give them the space he had craved when he was young. It ended up being a good working relationship all around.

But while Rhys' career was going up, his personal live was going down. In 1997 Rhys had married a woman named Diane, even though he never thought he would be the type to settle down. Normally, commitment scared him. He could commit to a film and that was it, he hardly ever had his attention held by anyone for a long period of time, and then came Diane. They were married for about six months before she found out she was pregnant, and Rhys found himself actually looking forward to becoming a father. He could see himself being the kind of father figure his own dad was, and he was starting to look forward to seeing just what their child could grow up to be. Unfortunately, that was never going to be. Unfortunate circumstances -- that Rhys knows of, but refuses to ever speak of -- caused Diane to miscarry, and while the couple tried their best to get past that, they just couldn't. Diane felt she was letting herself and Rhys down, and Rhys felt there was nothing he could do to make things right with Diane. The couple ended up filing for divorce in 2001 quietly and quickly getting it out of the way, and have not spoken since. Rhys has dated a few people here and there since then (quite a few, if he's being honest), but he has never been remarried and he has never even gotten closed to being engaged.

Among the women he had dated though, Rhys found he was getting connected more to the women who had worked with him before, rather than the women he was actually seeing. Never one for liking the whole cliche of "The Artist and His Muse", Rhys found he was falling into that path exactly. In fact, he had possibly already done that years before without admitting to it, soon getting back in touch with the actress from Pulp Fiction. Their talks and long nights spent together caused KILL BILL VOL. 1 and KILL BILL VOL. 2 to be born. The films were released as a two-part feature, with the first volume releasing in late 2003, and the second volume releasing in early 2004. The rumors about him started to fly as well, but he wasn't much on caring about it. Truthfully, he never really cared about rumors in the first place -- sometimes he even fuels them for fun.

What the Kill Bill movies proved to Rhys was that he was still capable of pushing the envelope. He was still capable of making people second guess what was going to happen, but he could still make an enjoyable film. Yes, he did have a lot of violence in his films, but he had fleshed out characters, and there was always a reason for the violence. His characters were smart, his movies were quick-talking, in a way all of his films and his characters were extensions of himself. So he decided to do what he's always done -- do what he loves, write what he loves, and don't care about what anyone else says about his work. Rhys had always set out to work on the films that he wanted to do, and while he knew that wasn't something that could necessarily be done, it was exactly what Rhys ended up accomplishing. So as the years went on, he turned his eye to producing more than directing, helping other directors get the films out that they wanted to do, Rhys making sure he was standing behind projects he could get passionately behind. Yet, he felt the pull of directing and writing bringing him back, and soon he was casting for INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, another film paying homage to various styles of the past, but taking history and putting a major twist on things. History did not happen the way that Rhys made it happen in his film, but that was the best part of it -- the audience thought they understood what was going to happen, and they found themselves surprised.

Again, though, Rhys' attention fell back to producing. He wrote his own script for a while, but found he was enjoying some of his free time. Soon though, he was frantically writing a film, and once he had pitched it, he found he was already starting to cast it. DJANGO UNCHAINED started filming in early 2011 and released in 2012. Always the man looking for work, Rhys went into writing his next film, as well as being asked to write and work on the television version of FROM DUSK UNTIL DAWN. Of course, that was all well and good, and he was happy to see that his film was getting new life in an adaptation, but he still felt that urge to continue to create on his own. Thus THE HATEFUL EIGHT came about, bringing people he had worked with for years, and people he had yet to work with but had wanted to for years. It released in 2015 to fanfare, and now in 2017, he's continuing to work on his new films -- and his last. Recently, Rhys had announced that his next two films will be his last two films, working towards retiring from directing, feeling as though he's done his part to the world. Of course...that's only if someone can't convince him otherwise.