THE RELEVANT QUEER: Lana Wachowski, Director, Writer and Producer

“Invisibility is indivisible from visibility; for the transgender this is not simply a philosophical conundrum, it can be the difference between life and death.”

TRQ: Lana Wachowski, Born June 21, 1965

Director, writer and producer Lana Wachowski was born on June 21, 1965. She and her sister are trans women most known for working together on The Matrix (1999), Cloud Atlas (2012), Sense8 (2015-2018), and other film and television projects starring Keanu Reeves, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Ben Whishaw, and Laurence Fishburne. The Wachowskis have also published comic books and released video games. 

Lana was born Laurence Wachowski in Chicago. Her mother Lynne was a nurse and artist. Ron, her father, was a business executive. Her uncle, Laurence Luckinbill, was an actor and Emmy-winning producer. 

Wachowski attended Kellogg Elementary School and Whitney Young High School, where she worked in the theatre and television program. In her spare time, she played Dungeons & Dragons with her sister. 

After graduating from high school, Wachowski attended Bard College in New York but left before graduating. In 1993 she started writing for Marvel Comics’ Razorline created by novelist Clive Barker. For Marvel’s Epic Comics, she and her sister wrote for Clive Barker’s Hellraiser and Clive Barker’s Nightbreed. 

In 1993, Lana married Thea Bloom. Their marriage would last almost ten years. 

The Wachowskis started writing scripts in the 1990s. They wrote the first script for Assassins (1995), though director Richard Donner had it rewritten by Brian Helgeland. Dissatisfied with the experience, the Wachowskis decided that directing would be a way of protecting their writing. 

In 1996, the sisters wrote and directed Bound. The well-received neo-noir film starred Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon as a same-sex couple. 

Next came The Matrix (1999), the science fiction action film starring Keanu Reeves as a hacker who crashes “the Matrix.” The film was a hit with critics and audiences and won four Academy Awards. The Library of Congress preserved the film as part of the National Film Registry in 2012. In 2003, the Wachowskis directed the sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions to mixed reviews and muted box office success. 

Rumors spread in early 2000s that Lana would be coming out as transgender. Everyone involved in V for Vendetta (2005) and Speed Racer (2008), the projects that followed The Matrix series, denied the rumours. 

Nevertheless, Lana transitioned after Speed Racer’s release. In 2009, she married Karin Winslow. Industry press referred to her as Lana in December 2010. In a video on the making of Cloud Atlas (2012), she appears publicly as the first transgender major Hollywood director. 

Cloud Atlas is an adaptation of David Mitchell’s 2004 novel. German filmmaker Tom Tykwer collaborated with the Wachowskis on both writing and directing. The ensemble cast included Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Ben Whishaw and Hugh Grant. 

The film is the most expensive independent movie to date, with a budget of over $100 million. It polarised audiences and critics, even after audiences gave it a lengthy standing ovation at the 37th annual Toronto International Film Festival. Cloud Atlas won several German Film Awards and Saturn Awards. 

That year the Human Rights Campaign awarded Wachowski their Visibility Award. Making a speech during a rare appearance at the gala dinner in San Francisco, she told the audience, “I am here because Mr. Henderson taught me that there are some things we do for ourselves, but there are some things we do for others. I am here because when I was young, I wanted very badly to be a writer, I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I couldn’t find anyone like me in the world and it felt like my dreams were foreclosed simply because my gender was less typical than others.” 

She continued, “If I can be that person for someone else […] then the sacrifice of my private civic life may have value. I know I am also here because of the strength and courage and love that I am blessed to receive from my wife, my family and my friends. And in this way I hope to offer their love in the form of my materiality to a project like this one started by the HRC, so that this world that we imagine in this room might be used to gain access to other rooms, to other worlds previously unimaginable.” 

Jupiter Ascending (2015) was released to mix reviews. Warner Bros ended its business relationship with the sisters after the film’s box office failure. 

Sense8 (2015) for Netflix followed, as a collaboration with J. Michael Straczynski. The series is shot in cities around the world, and the Wachowskis directed most of the episodes. The first season won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Drama Series, and its theme music won an Emmy. Though Lilly stopped working on the show, a second season, as well as Christmas special and a two-hour concluding finale followed. 

In 2019, Lana started work with David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon on writing, directing and producing the fourth Matrix film. The first film made by only one of the Wachowskis will hit theatres in December 2021. 

About the Authors

Troy Wise is currently a PhD student at UAL Central St Martins and teaches fashion and graphic design at London College of Contemporary Arts. His background is in marketing and is founder and co-editor of Image Amplified. He lives in, and is continually fascinated by, the city of London.

Rick Guzman earned his most recent MA at UAL Central St Martins in Applied Imagination in the Creative Industries. He currently holds two MA’s and an MBA in the New Media, Journalism and International Business fields. Co-editor at Image Amplified since its start, he lives in London, is fascinated by history and is motivated by continuing to learn and explore. 

Sources:

Advocate

Hollywood Reporter

New Yorker

People