2002 Woodstock Film Festival Maverick Awards

The Woodstock Film Festival Maverick Award takes its name from the original Woodstock arts colony of the early 1900s, which valued independence and social responsibility expressed through the arts.

This year, the festival is proud to announce that the Honorary Maverick Award will be presented to Tim Robbins for his social consciousness, intelligence, independence and creativity, as demonstrated in his body of work.  

As the son of folksinger Gil Robbins, Tim is no stranger to the art of dissent. He got his start performing protest songs with his dad. In his work as a multifaceted filmmaker and in his private life, Tim continues to associate with political and social activism, championing causes including union rights and opposition to the death penalty.

At the age of twelve, Robbins joined the Theatre for the New City in New York’s East Village. After attending the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, then UCLA, he joined the Actor's Gang, an avant-garde theater troupe. In 1988, he broke onto the film scene as a baseball player in Bull Durham, in which he starred opposite Susan Sarandon. A string of films followed, including Jacob’s Ladder and Robert Altman’s The Player, for which he received Best Actor kudos at the Cannes Film Festival.

 In 1992, Robbins wrote, directed, starred in and performed the music in Bob Roberts, a mockdocumentary that parodied politics on the campaign trail.

 Roles followed in Altman’s Short Cuts and Ready to Wear, The Hudsucker Proxy from the Coen Brothers and the Oscar-nominated The Shawshank Redemption.

 In 1995, Robbins wrote and directed Dead Man Walking a film about a convicted murderer on death row and the nun who finds empathy for him, the victims and their families. The film, which challenged public perception of the death penalty, earned Robbins an OscarÒ nomination for Best Director. Sean Penn garnered a Best Actor nomination and Susan Sarandon was awarded the OscarÒ for Best Actress.

Cradle Will Rock followed in 1999. Based on Marc Blitzstein’s play, the film explores the relationship between art, unions, politics and greed with humor, suspense, music and intelligence. That same year, Robbins portrayed a suburban terrorist in Arlington Road.

In 2002 Robbins co-starred with Patricia Arquette and Rhys Ifans in Human Nature. This fall, he’ll be seen as Mr. Bartholomew in Jonathan Demme’s The Truth About Charlie, and he is set to appear in Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River in 2003.