Stephen Gaghan - Details

Biography

STEPHEN GAGHAN (Screenplay) wrote the screenplay for "Rules of Engagement," directed by William Friedkin and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson.

His many television credits include "The Practice," "American Gothic," and "NYPD Blue," for which he won the 1997 Emmy Award for Best Dramatic Writing.

Gaghan’s short fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review. His next screenplay, "Abandon," with Edward Zwick directing, begins shooting for Paramount Pictures in February.

EDWARD ZWICK (Producer) received an Academy Award as one of the producers of 1998’s Best Picture winner, "Shakespeare in Love" (directed by John Madden).

Zwick began directing and acting in high school. He trained as an apprentice at the Academy Festival in Lake Forest. While studying literature at Harvard, he continued writing and directing for the theater. Upon graduation, he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship to study abroad with some of the major innovative theater companies.

In Europe, he supplemented his fellowship income by writing magazine articles. Then, in Paris, he worked for Woody Allen on the film "Love and Death."

Zwick was accepted as a Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute in 1975. "Timothy and the Angel," his AFI short film, won first place in the student film competition at the 1976 Chicago Film Festival, and caught the attention of the producers of the ABC television series "Family." He was invited to write an episode, and subsequently became the show’s story editor. He then began directing episodes, and eventually was named producer for the show’s final season.

He later directed such television films and pilots as "Paper Dolls," "Having It All," "Making Out" and "The Outsiders."

For his work as director, producer, and co-writer of the NBC telefilm "Special Bulletin" (1983), Zwick received two Emmy Awards. That project also marked the beginning of his collaboration with Marshall Herskovitz.

With Herskovitz, he created the Bedford Falls Company in 1985 as their home for film and television projects. Of the latter, their first creation was the Emmy Award-winning ABC series "thirtysomething." Subsequent ones included three more critically acclaimed ABC series: "My So-Called Life," "Relativity," and the current hit "Once and Again."

Zwick began his feature film directorial career with "About Last Night..." He went on to direct "Glory," the acclaimed Civil War epic that earned three Academy Awards, including one for Denzel Washington as Best Supporting Actor.

He next directed "Leaving Normal," starring Christine Lahti and Meg Tilly. The hit film "Legends of the Fall," starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, and Julia Ormond, followed. That film received the Academy Award for Best Cinematography (John Toll).

Zwick then reteamed with Washington, directing the actor in two more films: "Courage Under Fire," starring Meg Ryan and Matt Damon; and "The Siege," starring Annette Bening, Bruce Willis, and Tony Shalhoub.

To date, he has been honored with one Academy Award, three Emmy Awards, the Humanitas Prize, a Writers Guild of America Award, two Peabody Awards, a Directors Guild of America Award, and the Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Award from the American Film Institute.