Trivia

Last name is pronounced "Joe-Wan-No".

First film credit while still a high school student as 'special visual consultant' on Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) under supervision of Star Wars effects innovator John Dykstra.

Attended the University of Southern California (USC) Film School in the 1980s. The day after Joanou's student film Last Chance Dance (1984) was shown at the annual USC Film School screening - where student films are screened for industry professionals - Steven Spielberg phoned Joanou at home, asking if he'd like to direct an episode of "Amazing Stories." Joanou's reply was yes and he ended up directing two episodes: "Santa '85" and "The Doll," the latter of which won a best actor Emmy for actor 'John Lithgow'. Spielberg then gave Joanou the screenplay for Three O'Clock High (1987), then known as "After School".

As "Final Analysis" and "Heaven's Prisoners" proved to be critical and financial disappointments, Spielberg and Bono of U2 (separately) encouraged Joanou to "write something personal" and "from the heart", resulting in the extensively autobiographical "Entropy". Virtually every detail is based on the director's real life: just as portrayed in the film, the director had a lengthy relationship with a fashion model and a short-lived marriage to a girl he'd met backstage at a U2 concert; he filmed U2 in concert and on tour for "Rattle and Hum" and the group returned the favor during one Zooropa tour show by projecting footage of Joanou's Vegas wedding to the record company A&R executive he'd just met and married on the rebound; he once punched a studio executive on set; he has a cat named Puddy Tat, an editing room in his basement, and a brother-in-law who happens to be a screenwriter.

Joanou directed Lithgow again in the 1996-1997 second season finale of his hit television comedy series, 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996), broadcast during the May ratings 'sweeps' period. Almost a quarter of the special hour-long episode, 'A Nightmare on Dick Street', required special glasses for viewing 3-D dream sequences which no doubt accounted for a significant amount of the reported $1.3 million budget.