In 2002, he began filming Boyhood, a passion project which took over twelve years to complete. The film was released in 2014 to widespread critical acclaim. Linklater won the Golden Globes, Critics\' Choice Movie Awards, and BAFTAs for Best Director and Best Picture. He also received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director, along with nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture. In 2015, Linklater was included on the annual Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.\n', '

Many of his films are noted for their loosely structured narrative; several of his projects—the Before... films and Boyhood—feature the same actors filmed over an extended period of years. He is also known for loyalty to his actors, having worked with Ethan Hawke and Matthew McConaughey in many of his films.\n', '

Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Diane Margaret (née Krieger), who taught at Sam Houston State University, and Charles W. Linklater, III. He attended Huntsville High School in Huntsville, Texas, during grades 9–11, and finished at Bellaire High School in Bellaire, Texas for his senior year. As a teen, Linklater also won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award. Linklater studied at Sam Houston State University (where he also played baseball), until dropping out to work on an off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. He frequently read novels on the rig and, upon returning to land, developed a love of film through repeated visits to a repertory theater in Houston. At this point, Linklater realized he wanted to be a filmmaker. He used his savings to buy a Super-8 camera, a projector, and editing equipment, and moved to Austin, Texas. He was influenced by Martin Scorsese, Robert Bresson, Yasujirō Ozu, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Josef Von Sternberg, and Carl Theodor Dreyer. He enrolled in Austin Community College in the fall of 1984 to study film. Since his early 20s, Linklater has been a vegetarian. In 2015, he explained the dietary lifestyle in a Boyhood-style documentary for PETA.\n', '

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