Don Roos

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Don Roos
Don Roos (4809796579).jpg
Born (1955-04-14) April 14, 1955 (age 70)
New York City, U.S.
Occupation(s)Screenwriter, director, producer
Years active1979–present
Spouse
(m. 2008)
Children2

Donald Paul Roos (born April 14, 1955) is an American screenwriter and film director. [1]

Contents

Life and career

Roos was born in upstate New York into a conservative Roman Catholic family of mostly Irish descent. He attended the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. After graduating, Roos moved to Los Angeles, where he pursued a television screenwriting career. [2]

Roos supported himself by working as a word processor, and to this day jokes that he has that as a fall-back plan. Roos began his writing career when he had a friend of his impersonate an agent and represent him; a phone call led to a job with playwright Mart Crowley ( The Boys in the Band ), who at the time was an executive producer of Hart to Hart . Roos wrote for The Colbys , Nightingales , and other TV shows, before his spec scripts led to feature film writing assignments. His first major film was 1992's Academy Award-nominated Love Field , an interracial drama starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Dennis Haysbert. [3]

Roos's work as the writer of the film Single White Female has earned him a permanent space in Hollywood movie trivia, since that title has entered the lexicon[ citation needed ] in reference to the film's psychopathic lead character who begins to take on her roommate's identity.

Roos is well known for his work writing strong and engaging female characters,[ citation needed ] a skill that has also been useful in his film direction, leading to Independent Spirit Award nominations for actors Lisa Kudrow, Christina Ricci and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Roos himself has won a Best First Feature Independent Spirit Award, for The Opposite of Sex . [4] Roos has polished or written the screenplay to many high-profile studio films, sometimes as uncredited script doctor.

With his husband - actor, writer, and film producer Dan Bucatinsky - he has two children, Eliza and Jonah.

Filmography

Film

YearTitleDirectorWriterProducer
1992 Single White Female NoYesNo
Love Field NoYesCo-producer
1995 Boys on the Side NoYesExecutive
1996 Diabolique NoYesNo
1998 The Opposite of Sex [1] YesYesNo
2000 Bounce YesYesNo
2005 Happy Endings YesYesNo
2008 Marley & Me NoYesNo
2009 The Other Woman YesYesNo
2018 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society NoYesNo

Television

YearTitleDirectorWriterProducerCreatorNotes
1989 Nightingales NoYesYesNoWrote 2 episodes
2000 M.Y.O.B. YesYesExecutiveYesDirected 2 episodes
2008-2014 Web Therapy YesYesNoYesDirected 131 episodes
2010 Who Do You Think You Are? NoNoExecutiveNo7 episodes
2011-2015 Web Therapy YesYesNoYesAll 44 episodes
2017 Doubt NoYesConsultingNoEpisode "Faith"
2017-2018 This Is Us NoYesCo-executiveNoEpisodes "The 20's" and "That'll Be the Day"
2017-2021 Younger NoYesCo-executiveNo7 episodes
2020 Council of Dads NoNoConsultingNo5 episodes
Emily in Paris NoNoConsultingNo4 episodes
2022 Uncoupled NoYesCo-executiveNoEpisode "Chapter 5"

References

  1. 1 2 Maslin, Janet (May 29, 1998). "The Opposite of Sex (1998) FILM REVIEW; Her Mouth Is Poison, and Her Heart Is Fool's Gold". The New York Times .
  2. "The Family Guy Behind the Dark Comedies", nytimes.com. May 8, 2005. Accessed September 29, 2022.
  3. MacNab, Geoffrey (1999-01-14). "Strong, conniving women: the final frontier - Arts & Entertainment". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2010-04-10.
  4. Benedict, David (2000-06-16). "Here's to the bachelor with a spatula". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2010-04-10.[ dead link ]