Oscar-nominated producer Adam Somner, who was among the most in-demand first assistant directors in the business during the past few decades, died November 27 from anaplastic thyroid cancer. He was 57.
Somner was the go-to AD for the likes of Steven Spielberg (10 films), Paul Thomas Anderson (six) and Ridley Scott (six). He also worked multiple times with Scott’s brother Tony, Alejandro G. Iñárritu and James Mangold. His most recent films include Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Steve McQueen’s Blitz and Anderson’s upcoming untitled Warner Bros. film starring Leonardo Di Caprio.
Somner and fellow Licorice Pizza producer Sara Murphy were Oscar-nominated for their work on Anderson’s 2022 pic.
“The job title ‘assistant director’ is insufficient to describe what Adam Somner was to me and the contribution he made to my films—just as my left arm is more than just an assistant to my right,” said Spielberg in a statement to Deadline. “He worked as AD, and producer and he performed both of those tasks with equal measures of devotion. He loved making movies. He loved being on the set. It was his gridiron. He was a cheerleader and ball carrier and at times I couldn’t tell if he was following my lead or I was following his. He made everyone who joined the crew feel like they were part of the family. He was a uniter and when things weren’t going according to plan, his English working-class wit and humor, could smooth out the problem through his under-the-breath cursing, laughter, and the backup plan he always seemed to have standing by. He was an icon in his field and an inspiration to anyone who wants a career in the mounting of productions—with the full recognition that it is as creative as it is organizational. Going back to work without Adam will never be the same.”
Somner said during an AFI Conservatory Q&A in 2020. “I think your job as good AD is to be a barometer to the set. If it’s tense, you try and make it less tense. If maybe it’s too slack, you try and snap it up, try and get it to where the chemistry is the right level to do good work.”
Among Somner’s more memorable demonstrations of that skill was overseeing the wild airplane orgy scene in The Wolf of Wall Street.
“It was all in the preparation,” he told DGA Quarterly. Somner choreographed the scene carefully, pairing off actors to create controlled scenes so everyone felt comfortable.
“It would be like, ‘You two are doing this over here,’ and ‘You two are doing that over there,’ and then sometimes I’d be with Marty and he’d be like, ‘Can you have something going on over there?’ We were working in a secure environment that was preset,” Somner said. “Everyone was prepped. So when we wanted them to go nuts, they could go nuts. Everyone was working in set boundaries.”
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Scorsese said he “never would have been able to make The Wolf of Wall Street or Killers of the Flower Moon without him.
“Adam Somner was credited as an Assistant Director and a Producer on three of my pictures, but his presence meant more to me and to the films than any credits could really even indicate,” he said in a statement to Deadline. “Adam had a very special and very particular set of qualities—the organizational abilities and the discipline of a general on the battlefield; a unique ability to work as closely with me or with any director as two dancers doing a routine or two musicians bouncing off each other; and an extraordinary artistry when it came to organizing and orchestrating movement in the frame. Adam Somner embodied and practiced all of it. I would never have been able to make The Wolf of Wall Street or Killers of the Flower Moon without him, and we were in the middle of planning another project. He passed away far too early, and I will miss him terribly. He loved “making pictures,” as he put it. He was one of the finest collaborators I could ask for, and I know that my fellow directors would say the same.”
Licorice Pizza writer-director Anderson also paid tribute to Somner: “Adam loved making films more than anyone else ever in the history of the movie business. It was food and drink to him. He made everyone who worked with him feel safe,” said Anderson. “He saw everything from all sides at once and had a back up plan to the back up plan to the back up plan. He moved mountains and trucks and people like he was moving a salt shaker across a table. It was glorious to watch him work.
“He knew how to make a film better than anyone else. His intuition and talent was second only to how deeply funny and loving he was. Most of all and above everything, he was generous.
“For those of us lucky enough to work with him, we know going to work will never be the same or as much fun. I would rank him in the Kobe Bryant, Mick Jagger, Winston Churchill category of Legends. And that would be under-selling it.”
Somner also was awarded the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement/Feature Film for his work with Gonzalez Iñárritu on The Revenant. He also got Producers Guild & BAFTA Award noms for Licorice Pizza.
Somner is survived by his wife Carmen Ruiz de Huidobro, his children, Olivia and Bosco and his brother, Mark Somner.
A DGA scholarship in Somner’s name will be established with donation details forthcoming.
Watch Somner and Murphy discuss Licorice Pizza with Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro during a 2022 Contenders panel below:
