Catherine Harwicke (born Helen Catherine Hardwicke on October 21, 1955) is an American production designer and film director. She is perhaps best known for directing the independent film Thirteen and the Biblically-themed The Nativity Story.
Hardwicke moved to Cameron, Texas with John Benjamin Hardwicke and her sister Jamee Elberta Bennett. Proir to this she grew up in McAllen, Texas and was raised in the Presbyterian religion. While at UCLA film school during the 1980s, Hardwicke made an award-winning short, Puppy Does the Gumbo.
Hardwicke began her career as an architect. She spent most of the 1990s as a production designer, working on such films as Tombstone (1993), Tank Girl (1995), 2 Days in the Valley (1996), The Newton Boys (1998), and Three Kings. The following year she collaborated with director/screenwriter Cameron Crowe and actor/producer Tom Cruise on Vanilla Sky (2001). The later two films are notable for their original use of color-manipulation techniques to complement the narrative.
Hardwicke's first foray into film direction was with the award-winning Thirteen (2003). Hardwicke and fifteen year-old Nikki Reed got together to write a movie that would reflect Reed's pre-teen experience. The script for the movie was done in only six days. Evan Rachel Wood was contracted to star in the movie alongside Reed. Hardwicke went on to direct Lords of Dogtown (2005), a fictionalized account of skateboarding culture. The film is loosely based on the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys by Stacy Peralta.
In 2006, Hardwicke directed the biblical film The Nativity Story for New Line Cinema. The film was released on December 1, 2006.
