John Cameron Mitchell | |
---|---|
Born | John Cameron Mitchell April 21, 1963 |
Education | Northwestern University |
Occupation(s) | Actor, playwright, screenwriter, film director |
Years active | 1983–present |
John Cameron Mitchell (born April 21, 1963) is an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, singer, songwriter, producer and director. He is known as the writer, director and star of the 2001 film Hedwig and the Angry Inch , which is based on the stage musical of the same name. He also portrayed the role of Joe Exotic in the Peacock limited series Joe vs. Carole in 2022.
Mitchell was born in El Paso, Texas and was raised on a variety of military bases in places like Kansas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Germany. His father, John Henderson Mitchell, was a U.S. Army major general and the U.S. Commander of West Berlin from 1984 to 1988. His mother, Joan Cameron Mitchell, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, immigrated to the United States as a young woman to become an art teacher. John had three younger brothers: Christopher Lloyd, Colin Mackenzie, and Samuel Latham. Samuel Latham Mitchell died in 1977. [1] He attended Catholic schools for most of his youth including St. Xavier High School in Junction City, Kansas, and St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, graduating from the latter in 1981. Mitchell's first stage role was as the Virgin Mary in a Nativity musical staged at a Scottish Benedictine boys' boarding school, Carlekemp Priory Prep School, when Mitchell was 11 years old. He studied theater at Northwestern University from 1981 to 1985, but did not graduate. [2]
Mitchell's first professional stage role was Huckleberry Finn in a 1985 Organic Theater adaptation at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. [3] His first New York acting role was Huck Finn in the Broadway musical Big River (1985). He originated the role of Dickon on Broadway in The Secret Garden , and appeared in the original cast of the off-Broadway musical Hello Again . He received Drama Desk nominations for both roles, and can be heard on the original cast recordings for each. [4]
He appeared in the original cast of John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation (both off- and on-Broadway), and starred in Larry Kramer's off-Broadway sequel to The Normal Heart , The Destiny of Me , for which he received an Obie Award [5] and a Drama Desk nomination. [6]
Mitchell's early television work includes guest-starring roles in Daybreak , MacGyver , Head of the Class , Law & Order , The Twilight Zone , Freddy's Nightmares , The Equalizer , Our House , The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story , and The Stepford Children . He was a regular cast member on the 1996 Fox sitcom Party Girl , and was the long-running voice of Sydney, the animated kangaroo mascot of Dunkaroos snack cookies.[ citation needed ]
Starring and co-starring film roles include a homicidal new waver in Band of the Hand (1986), a Polish immigrant violinist in Misplaced (1990), and a teen Lothario poet in Book of Love (1990). Mitchell had a single line ("Delivery!") in Spike Lee's Girl Six (1996) as a man auditioning for a pornographic film. Mitchell is a founding member of the Drama Department Theater Company, for which he adapted and directed Tennessee Williams' Kingdom of Earth starring Cynthia Nixon and Peter Sarsgaard. [7]
In 1998, Mitchell wrote (along with composer Stephen Trask) and starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch , an Obie Award-winning off-Broadway rock musical about a genderqueer East German rock musician chasing after an ex-lover who plagiarized her songs. [4]
Three years later, he directed and starred in the feature-film version of the play, for which he won Best Director at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Mitchell's performance was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. Both the play and the film were critical hits and have spawned cult followings around the world. [8] [9]
The 2014 Broadway production of Hedwig starred Neil Patrick Harris and Lena Hall, was directed by Michael Mayer, and won four Tony Awards, including Best Actor in a Musical (Harris), Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Hall), and Best Revival of a Musical. Mitchell reprised his Hedwig performance during the run and received a 2015 Special Tony Award for his return to the role. [10]
After the success of Hedwig, Mitchell expressed an interest in writing, directing, and producing a film that incorporated explicit sex in a naturalistic and thoughtful way, without using "stars". [11] After three years of talent searches, improvisation workshops, and production, Shortbus premiered in May 2006 at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. The film garnered many awards, [12] at venues such as the Athens, Gijon, and Zurich International Film Festivals.
He directed the 2010 film Rabbit Hole , starring Nicole Kidman (in an Oscar-nominated performance) and Aaron Eckhart, adapted from David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name about a couple dealing with the loss of their four-year-old son. Mitchell became interested in directing the project out of a personal connection to the story, having dealt with the death of his four-year-old brother as a teenager. [13] The film debuted at the Toronto Film Festival.
Mitchell was the executive producer of the 2004 film Tarnation , a documentary about the life of Jonathan Caouette, whom he met when the latter auditioned for Shortbus. Tarnation won 2004 Best Documentary from the National Society of Film Critics, the Independent Spirit Awards and the Gotham Awards. He directed videos for Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life" (featuring Secret Garden co-star Alison Fraser) [14] and the Scissor Sisters' "Filthy/Gorgeous"; [15] the latter was banned from MTV Europe for its explicitly sexual content. [16] In 2012, Mitchell wrote and produced a narrative short film for Sigur Rós titled "Seraph", directed by animator Dash Shaw. [17]
Mitchell has appeared as a pundit on Politically Incorrect and various VH1 and Independent Film Channel programs. He introduced films on a show called Escape From Hollywood on IFC for two years. He wrote and directed a number of short films and commercials for Dior including Lady Grey London and L.A.dy Dior both starring Marion Cotillard and Dior Homme Sport, starring Jude Law. In 2013, He wrote and directed a fashion video for Agent Provocateur entitled "Insurrection". [18] In 2016, Mitchell appeared on Amanda Palmer and Jherek Bischoff's tribute album to late musician David Bowie, Amanda Palmer and Jherek Bischoff: Strung Out In Heaven (A David Bowie Tribute). [19]
Mitchell appeared as David Pressler-Goings in Seasons 2 and 3 of HBO series Girls , and as Andy Warhol in HBO's Vinyl . Mitchell can be seen in the 2016 documentary Danny Says alongside Danny Fields, Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop. He has played a character based on Milo Yiannopoulos on The Good Fight opposite Christine Baranski and as the character of Egon in season 4 of the Amazon Studios series Mozart in the Jungle opposite Gael García Bernal. In 2014, he directed an unaired pilot of Showtime series Happyish starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in his final role.
Mitchell's film How to Talk to Girls at Parties , a screen adaptation of Neil Gaiman's punk-era short story of the same title starring Elle Fanning, Alex Sharp, and Nicole Kidman was released by A24 in spring 2018. [20] He directed (with co-director Mark A. Burkley) Netflix's GLOW Season 2 Episode 4, "Mother of All Matches" which was deemed Number One of "The best TV episodes of 2018" by Entertainment Weekly. [21]
Mitchell was a series cast member in Hulu's Shrill , which stars Aidy Bryant and is based on Lindy West's memoir of the same title. In 2019, John released his latest musical, co-written with Bryan Weller, as a fictional podcast series entitled Anthem: Homunculus starring himself, Glenn Close, Patti Lupone, Cynthia Erivo, Denis O'Hare, Nakhane, Laurie Anderson, Alan Mandell, Marion Cotillard, Ben Foster, and Madeline Brewer presented by the Luminary Podcast Network. [22] He is a regular cast member on the podcast The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) , which is published by Night Vale Presents. [23] In 2019, John and Portland-based band Eyelids recorded Turning Time Around, an album of Lou Reed covers produced by REM's Peter Buck and released by Jealous Butcher Records as a benefit for Mitchell's mother's Alzheimer's care.
Mitchell's "distance-defying, community-built benefit album" New American Dream (Parts 1 and 2) was released September 4, 2020, including collaborations with Ezra Furman, Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff, Stephen Trask, Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu, Wynton Marsalis, Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon, Catherine Russell and Leland benefitting a COVID food bank, a trans justice group and the Dr. MLK Scholarship Trust Fund. [24]
In 2022, he played Joe Exotic in Peacock's streaming series adaptation of the Wondery podcast series Joe vs. Carole . John cowrote (with Brett Every) and sang a song from the point of view of the character, "Call Me Joe," featuring Nat Wolff as Joe's husband Travis Maldonado. That same year he appeared in the Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman as Hal Carter. He plays Amory (the "Demon Brother") on Apple TV+ City on Fire . He regularly tours a career retrospective concert with Amber Martin entitled Cassette Roulette as well as Black Star Symphony conceived by Donny McCaslin featuring orchestral arrangements of songs by David Bowie, an early investor in the first Hedwig production. [25] He is presently finishing Cancellation Island, a new satirical podcast series co-written with Michael Cavadias in which a character played by Holly Hunter opens a rehab for cancelled people.
In 1985, at the age of 22, Mitchell came out as gay to his family and friends. [4] He came out publicly in a 1992 New York Times profile. [3] His subsequent writing has often explored sexuality and gender. He is a Radical Faerie. Mitchell's experiences with the group influenced the making of Shortbus . [26] Along with Shortbus stars PJ DeBoy and Paul Dawson and performance artists Amber Martin and Angela Di Carlo, he is a co-founder and DJ of the long-running New York City monthly party "Mattachine," named after the early American gay rights organization Mattachine Society. [27] In 2022, he came out as non-binary, [28] and continues to use he/him pronouns. [29]
Mitchell presently splits his home life between Manhattan and New Orleans. [30] [31]
Film
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
2001 | Hedwig and the Angry Inch | Also writer and star |
2006 | Shortbus | |
2010 | Rabbit Hole | |
2011 | Lady Grey London | Short film |
2011 | L.A.dy Dior | Short film |
2013 | Insurrection | Short film |
2017 | How to Talk to Girls at Parties |
Television
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
2013 | Nurse Jackie | Episode: "Luck of the Drawing" |
2015 | Happyish | Unaired pilot |
2018 | GLOW | Episode: "Mother of All Matches"; Co-director with Mark A. Burkley |
Podcast
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
2018 | Anthem: Homunculus | Scripted podcast series |
Film
Year | Title | Roles | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1986 | Band of the Hand | J. L. | |
1986 | One More Saturday Night | Teenager No. 2 | |
1987 | The Stepford Children | Kenny | TV film |
1988 | A Friendship in Vienna | Tommi Lowberg | TV film |
1989 | No Holds Barred | Man in Audience (uncredited) | |
1989 | Misplaced | Jacek | |
1990 | Book of Love | Floyd | |
1990 | The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story | Albert the Reporter | TV film |
1990 | Teach 109 | 1st Android | TV short |
1990 | Daybreak | Lennie | TV film |
1995 | Girl 6 | Rob | |
1996 | David Searching | Man with Fruit | |
1999 | I Remember | Joe | Short film |
2001 | Hedwig and the Angry Inch | Hedwig | Also director and writer |
2006 | Shortbus | Sextra | (uncredited) |
2016 | My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea | Brent Daniels | Voice role in animated feature |
Television
Year | Title | Roles | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1984 | American Playhouse | Calvin Fitch | Episode: "The Roommate" |
1986 | The Equalizer | Ed Donahue | Episode: "Unpunished Crimes" |
1986 | The Twilight Zone | Tom | Episode: "A Day in Beaumont/The Last Defender of Camelot" (segment "The Last Defender of Camelot") |
1986 | ABC Afterschool Specials | Friend at bus stop | Episode: "A Desperate Exit" |
1987 | MacGyver | Aaron | Episode: "Hell Week" |
1987–1990 | Head of the Class | Manfred | Episodes: "That'll Be the Day" and "From Hair to Eternity: Part 2" |
1988 | Our House | Willie Gillis | Episode: "Out of Step" |
1988 | Freddy's Nightmares | Bryan Ross | Episode: "It's a Miserable Life" |
1993 | Class of '96 | Horace | Episode: "See You in September" |
1995 | Law & Order | Eddie | Episode: "Pride" |
1996 | Party Girl | Derrick | 4 episodes |
1997 | Nothing Sacred | Matt Evans | Episode: "Speaking in Tongues" |
2013–2014 | Girls | David Pressler-Goings | 5 episodes |
2016 | Vinyl | Andy Warhol | 3 episodes |
2017–2022 | The Good Fight | Felix Staples | 6 episodes |
2018 | Mozart in the Jungle | Egon | 4 episodes |
2019–2021 | Shrill | Gabe | 22 episodes |
2021 | Santa Inc. | Dr. Almonds | Animated TV Series |
2022 | Joe vs. Carole | Joe Exotic | Limited series [32] |
2022 | The Sandman | Hal | 11 episodes |
2023 | Yellowjackets | Caligula | 1 episode |
2023 | City on Fire | Amory Gould | Main cast |
Podcasts
Year | Title | Roles | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2018–present | The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) | John Cameron | Voice role - fictional podcast series |
2019–present | Anthem: Homunculus | Ceann Mackay | Voice role - fictional podcast series |
Hot White Heist | Orlov | Podcast series | |
2021 | The Cinnamon Bear | Grand Wonky | Podcast series |
Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian broadcaster, musician, film director, actress and multimedia artist. She is a former MuchMusic VJ and a former radio host on CBC Radio. She has appeared in films, notably in the John Cameron Mitchell movie Shortbus.
Michael Carlyle Hall is an American actor, singer, and songwriter. He is known for playing David Fisher in the HBO drama series Six Feet Under (2001–2005) and the titular character in the Showtime series Dexter (2006–2013). For these roles, he has collectively won a Golden Globe Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. He reprised the role of Dexter for the miniseries revival Dexter: New Blood (2021–2022).
Michael Pitt is an American actor, model, and musician. In film, he has appeared in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), Bully (2001), Murder by Numbers (2002), The Dreamers (2003), Last Days (2005), Silk (2007), Funny Games (2007), I Origins (2014), and Ghost in the Shell (2017). In television, he portrayed Henry Parker in the teen drama Dawson's Creek (1999–2000), Jimmy Darmody in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010–2011), and Mason Verger in the second season of the NBC series Hannibal (2014).
Anthony Deane Rapp is an American actor and singer who originated the role of Mark Cohen in the Broadway production of Rent. Following his original performance of the role in 1996, he reprised it in the film version of the show and the show's United States tour in 2009. He also performed Charlie Brown in the 1999 Broadway revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and originated the role of Lucas in the musical If/Then in 2014. From 2017 to 2024, he played Commander Paul Stamets on the television series Star Trek: Discovery.
Jeffrey Daniel Whitty is an American playwright, actor, and screenwriter.
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André Robin De Shields is an American actor, singer, dancer, director, and choreographer. He has received numerous accolades including an Emmy Award, Grammy Award, and Tony Award.
Shortbus is a 2006 American erotic comedy-drama film written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. The plot revolves around a sexually diverse ensemble of colorful characters trying desperately to connect in an early 2000s New York City. The characters converge in a weekly Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s. According to Mitchell, the film attempts to "employ sex in new cinematic ways because it's too interesting to leave to porn." Shortbus includes a variety of explicit scenes containing non-simulated sexual intercourse with visible penetration and male ejaculation.
Andrew Scott Rannells is an American actor. He is best known for originating the role of Elder Kevin Price in the 2011 Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical and won the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. He received his second Tony nomination in 2017 for his performance as Whizzer in the 2016 Broadway revival of Falsettos. Other Broadway credits include Hairspray (2005), Jersey Boys (2009), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2014), Hamilton (2015), The Boys in the Band (2018), and Gutenberg! The Musical! (2023). For his performance in the Off West End production of Tammy Faye, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award.
Alison Fraser is an American actress, voice actress and singer who has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in television and film. In concert, she has performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, The White House, Town Hall, The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Tisch Center for the Arts, The Folger Shakespeare Library, The Wilma, The Emelin, Joe's Pub, 54 Below, and Symphony Space.
Miriam Shor is an American actress. She gained prominence for her performance in the Off-Broadway rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch (1998–2000) and in the 2001 film adaptation of the same name. She later starred in a number of short-lived television series, including Swingtown (2008) and GCB (2012).
Kevin Cahoon is an American actor, director, writer, and singer-songwriter. In 2023, he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and the Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Performance in a Musical for his performance in Shucked on Broadway.
Jonathan Drew Groff is an American actor and singer. Known for his performances on stage and screen, he has received several awards including a Tony Award and a Grammy Award as well as a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask and a book by John Cameron Mitchell. The musical follows Hedwig Robinson, a genderqueer East German singer of a fictional rock and roll band. The story draws on Mitchell's life as the child of a U.S. Army major general who once commanded the U.S. sector of occupied West Berlin. The character of Hedwig was inspired by a German divorced U.S. Army wife who was Mitchell's family babysitter and moonlighted as a prostitute at her trailer park home in Junction City, Kansas. The music is steeped in the androgynous 1970s glam rock style of David Bowie, as well as the work of John Lennon and early punk performers Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a 2001 American musical comedy-drama film written for the screen and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. Based on Mitchell's and Stephen Trask's 1998 stage musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, it accompanies Hedwig Robinson, a gay East German rock singer. Hedwig subsequently develops a relationship with a younger man, Tommy, becoming his mentor and musical collaborator, only to have Tommy steal her music and become a rock star. The film follows Hedwig and her backing band, the Angry Inch, as they shadow Tommy's tour, while exploring Hedwig's past and her forced sex reassignment surgery. Mitchell reprises his role as Hedwig from the original production.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a 1998 musical about a fictional rock and roll band of the same name fronted by an East German genderqueer person, with a book by John Cameron Mitchell, and music and lyrics by Stephen Trask. The musical has gathered a devoted cult following, and was adapted into the 2001 American musical film of the same name directed by Mitchell.
Bradford Scobie is a New York City performance artist and comedian who performs one-man musical comedy routines.
Celina Consuela Gabriella Carvajal, known professionally as Lena Hall, is an American actress and singer. She originated the role of Nicola in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots and won the Tony Award for her performance as Yitzhak in the 2014 revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which also earned her a Grammy nomination for the musical's official album. She made history by becoming the first person to play both Hedwig and Yitzhak in the same production during the national tour of the musical in 2016. Her other Broadway credits include Cats, 42nd Street, Dracula, the Musical and Tarzan, the Musical. Hall has also starred in Off-Broadway productions such as Radiant Baby, Bedbugs!!!, Rooms: A Rock Romance, The Toxic Avenger, Prometheus Bound, Chix6, Little Shop of Horrors, and the 2017 original play How to Transcend a Happy Marriage.
Paul Edwin McGill III is an American actor, choreographer and director for stage, film, and television.
Anthem: Homunculus is a musical podcast series written by John Cameron Mitchell and Bryan Weller starring Mitchell, Glenn Close, Cynthia Erivo, Patti LuPone, Denis O'Hare, Laurie Anderson, Nakhane, Christopher Hanke, Marion Cotillard, Ben Foster and Bridget Everett. The show was produced by Topic Studios and initially released exclusively on Luminary and presently distributed by Acast.
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