Adam Somner, an award-winning assistant director, producer and longtime collaborator of Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson, has died. He was 57.
Somner died Wednesday of anaplastic thyroid cancer, a family spokesperson announced.
Born in the U.K., Somner built a successful career in Hollywood, working alongside Spielberg, Scorsese, Anderson, Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Ridley Scott. His most recent project was Anderson’s untitled Warner Bros. film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Some of the movies Somner worked on with Spielberg throughout his career were West Side Story, Lincoln, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Ready Player One, Bridge of Spies and Munich. As for Scorsese, he worked on Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wolf of Wall Street. He collaborated with Anderson on Licorice Pizza, Phantom Thread, Inherent Vice, The Master and There Will Be Blood. Somner worked with Scott on All the Money in the World, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Gladiator, Hannibal and G.I. Jane. And he worked with Iñárritu on The Revenant and Birdman.
Somner earned an Oscar nomination for his work on 2021’s Licorice Pizza and received a DGA Award for outstanding directorial achievement in a feature for 2015’s The Revenant.
“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,” Spielberg wrote in a tribute. “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.”
The filmmaker continued: “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.”
Scorsese shared in a statement: “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. 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.”
Anderson remembered Somner, writing: “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. He saw everything from all sides at once and had a backup plan to the backup plan to the backup 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 underselling it.”
Somner is survived by his wife, Carmen Ruiz de Huidobro; his children, Olivia and Bosco; and his brother, Mark Somner.
A DGA scholarship in his name will be established, with donation details forthcoming.
