Rise of the Machines

Alex Proyas never got a high school diploma – a fact he blames on Isaac Asimov. It was Asimov's short story "Nightfall" that derailed Proyas' academic career. "It's a wonderful vision of how the world can suddenly descend into anarchy," says Proyas, 41, describing the chaos that ensues in "Nightfall" when all six of a planet's suns set for the first time in 2,049 years. "I tried to convince my English teachers to assign us some science fiction, but they wouldn't. It opened a rift between my creative desires and what the system wanted me to explore." So Proyas quit school and took his education upon himself, reading the works of Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Philip K. Dick.