Eli Raphael Roth (born April 18, 1972) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. As a director and producer, he is most closely associated with the horror genre, namely splatter films, having directed the films Cabin Fever (2003) and Hostel (2005).
Roth continued to work in the horror genre, directing the films Hostel: Part II (2007) and The Green Inferno (2013). He also expanded into other genres, directing the erotic thriller film Knock Knock (2015) and the action film Death Wish (2018), a remake of the 1974 original. Also in 2018, he directed the fantasy comedy film The House with a Clock in Its Walls, his first PG-rated film and his highest domestic grosser to date.
As an actor, Roth starred as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's war film Inglourious Basterds (2009), for which he received a Critic's Choice Movie Award and an SAG Award as part of the ensemble.
Many journalists have included him in a group of filmmakers dubbed the Splat Pack for their explicitly violent and controversially bloody horror films. In 2013, Roth received the Visionary Award for his contributions to horror at the Stanley Film Festival.
Early life
Roth was born the middle of three sons in Newton, Massachusetts, to Sheldon Roth, a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst and clinical professor at Harvard Medical School, and Cora Roth, a painter. He has an older brother, Adam (born May 1970), and a younger brother, Gabriel (born December 1974). Roth was raised Jewish (his family were Jewish emigrants from Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Poland). In addition to English, he speaks French, Italian, and basic Russian.
Roth began shooting films at the age of eight, after watching Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). He and his brothers, Adam and Gabriel, made more than 100 short films before he graduated from Newton South High School and attended film school (the Tisch School of the Arts) at New York University. To fund his films while in college, Roth worked as an online cybersex operator for Penthouse Magazine, posing as a woman, as well as a production assistant on feature films. Roth also ran the office of producer Frederick Zollo, leaving after graduation to devote himself to writing full-time. He collected unemployment and found work on Howard Stern's Private Parts as Stern's assistant, staying at Silvercup Studios in Queens at night working on his scripts while Stern slept.
Actress Camryn Manheim gave Roth one of his first Hollywood jobs, as an extra on The Practice, when he moved to Los Angeles. Roth would stay in Manheim's dressing room, working on his scripts, while she filmed the show. The two had become friends in New York, while Roth was working for Zollo. Roth also met Manheim's cousin Howie Nuchow (former EVP of Mandalay Sports Entertainment and also from the Boston area) at her family Passover seder—this led to Roth's first animation project, Chowdaheads, the following year. Roth also co-wrote a project called The Extra with Manheim, who later sold the pitch to producer (and former CEO and Chairman of Fox Studios) Bill Mechanic's Pandemonium company.
