Ron Nyswaner | |
---|---|
Born | |
Education | University of Pittsburgh (BA) Columbia University (MFA) |
Occupation(s) | Film director, writer |
Ronald L. Nyswaner (born October 5, 1956) is an American screenwriter and film director. [1] He is a Peabody Award [2] winner, and has been nominated for numerous awards including an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards.
He is known for his screenplays Smithereens (1982), Philadelphia (1993), The Painted Veil (2006), Freeheld (2015), and My Policeman (2022). He is also known as a writer and producer of the Showtime series Ray Donovan (2013–2015), Homeland (2017–2018), and the historical drama series Fellow Travelers (2023).
Nyswaner was born in Clarksville, Pennsylvania. He later attended the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia University. [3]
Nyswaner wrote his first screenplay for the Susan Seidelman film Smithereens . After two other notable screenplays for Swing Shift and Mrs. Soffel , he gave his directorial debut with The Prince of Pennsylvania in 1988, a film with Keanu Reeves and Fred Ward.
Nyswaner, who is openly gay [4] and an activist for gay rights, has often worked on movies dealing with subjects such as homosexuality, homophobia, and AIDS. In 1993, he came to worldwide prominence for his screenplay to the Academy Award-winning movie Philadelphia , directed by Jonathan Demme. It earned him nominations at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, and the BAFTAs.
After several years of working for television, he wrote the screenplay for the 2006 film The Painted Veil , based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. He received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award and won the award of the National Board of Review in 2006.
From 2015 to 2017, he was an executive producer for the Showtime TV series Homeland .
In 2015, Nyswaner directed the documentary film She's the Best Thing in It, featuring Mary Louise Wilson, which he coproduced along with Jeffrey Schwarz and Neda Armian. [5]
Nyswaner created the historical drama miniseriesFellow Travelers in 2023, which won a Peabody Award [6] at the 84th ceremony in 2024.
As a director
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
1988 | The Prince of Pennsylvania | |
2012 | Why Stop Now? | |
2015 | She's the Best Thing in It | documentary |
As a writer
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
1982 | Smithereens | |
1984 | Mrs. Soffel | |
1989 | Gross Anatomy | |
1990 | Love Hurts | |
1993 | Philadelphia | |
2006 | The Painted Veil | |
2015 | Freeheld | |
2022 | My Policeman | |
Year | Title | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2003 | Soldier's Girl | Television movie | |
2006 | Filthy Gorgeous | Television movie | |
2013–2014 | Ray Donovan | Wrote 4 episodes; also co-executive producer | |
2015–2018 | Homeland | Wrote 9 episodes; also co-executive producer | |
2020 | Murder on Middle Beach | Co-executive producer only | |
2023 | Fellow Travelers | Screenwriter and executive producer | [7] |
Year | Award | Category | Project | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
1988 | Deauville Film Festival | Critics Prize | The Prince of Pennsylvania | Nominated |
1989 | Independent Spirit Awards | Best First Feature | Nominated | |
1993 | Academy Award | Best Original Screenplay | Philadelphia | Nominated |
1993 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Screenplay | Nominated | |
1993 | British Academy Film Awards | Best Original Screenplay | Nominated | |
1993 | Writers Guild of America Awards | Best Original Screenplay | Nominated | |
2006 | Independent Spirit Awards | Best Screenplay | The Painted Veil | Nominated |
2006 | National Board of Review | Best Adapted Screenplay | Won | |
2014 | Writers Guild of America Awards | New Series | Ray Donovan | Nominated |
2015 | SXSW Film Festival | Grand Jury Documentary Prize | She's The Best Thing in It | Nominated |
2015 | Woodstock Film Festival | Audience Award | Won | |
2016 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Drama Series | Homeland | Nominated |
2024 | Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie | Fellow Travelers | Nominated | |
2024 | Peabody Awards | Chronicling LGBTQ+ History Over 50 Years | Fellow Travelers | Won |
In 2004, he published Blue Days, Black Nights: A Memoir, which chronicles his relationship with alcohol, drugs, and hustlers.
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and author. His work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. Lee has won numerous accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two Peabody Awards. He has also been honored with an Honorary BAFTA Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2003, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2015.
Linus William Roache is a British actor. He played Executive ADA Michael Cutter in the NBC dramas Law & Order (2008–2010) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2011–2012), and also played Ecbert, King of Wessex in Vikings from 2014 to 2017.
Jaye Davidson is an English model, fashion stylist, and retired actor. He made his acting debut as Dil in the thriller film The Crying Game (1992), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Following his breakthrough, he portrayed the villainous Ra in the commercially successful science fiction film Stargate (1994). Davidson retired from acting afterwards, disliking the fame that the roles brought him.
Stanley Tucci Jr. is an American actor. Known as a character actor, he has played a wide variety of roles ranging from menacing to sophisticated. Tucci has earned numerous accolades, including six Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Tony Award.
James Francis Ivory is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was a principal in Merchant Ivory Productions along with Indian film producer Ismail Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The trio is known for making film adaptations of stories by authors such as E.M. Forster and Henry James. Their body of work is celebrated for its elegance, sophistication, literary fidelity, strong performances, complex themes, and rich characters.
Soldier's Girl is a 2003 biographical drama film written by Ron Nyswaner and directed by Frank Pierson. It is based on a story of the relationship between Barry Winchell and Calpernia Addams and the events that led up to Barry's murder by a fellow soldier, starring Troy Garity as Winchell and Lee Pace as Addams. The film premiered on Showtime on May 31, 2003.
Frederic Michael Raphael FRSL is an American-born British novelist, biographer, journalist and Oscar-winning screenwriter, known for writing the screenplays for Darling, Far from the Madding Crowd,Two for the Road, and Stanley Kubrick's last film Eyes Wide Shut. Raphael rose to prominence in the early 1960s with the publication of several acclaimed novels, but most notably with the release of the John Schlesinger film Darling, starring Julie Christie and Dirk Bogarde, a romantic drama set in Swinging London, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1966. Two years later he was nominated again in the same category, this time for his work on Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road, starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. Since the death of screenwriter D. M. Marshman Jr. in 2015, he is the earliest surviving recipient of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and the sole surviving recipient of the now retired BAFTA category of Best British Screenplay.
Susan Seidelman is an American film director, producer, and writer. She is known for mixing comedy with drama and blending genres in her feature-film work. She is also notable for her art direction and pop-cultural references throughout her films, with a focus on women protagonists, particularly outsiders.
Nicole Holofcener is an American film and television director and screenwriter. She has directed seven feature films, including Walking and Talking, Friends with Money and Enough Said, as well as various television series. Along with Jeff Whitty, Holofcener received a 2019 Academy Award nomination for Adapted Screenplay, a BAFTA nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018).
Siân Heder is an American filmmaker who is best known for writing and directing the films Tallulah and CODA. CODA earned Heder an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film also won the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur.
Thomas Furneaux Lennon is a documentary filmmaker. He was born in Washington, D.C., graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1968 and Yale University in 1973.
The Painted Veil is a 2006 American drama film directed by John Curran. The screenplay by Ron Nyswaner is based on the 1925 novel of the same title by W. Somerset Maugham. Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Toby Jones, Anthony Wong Chau Sang and Liev Schreiber appear in the leading roles.
Clement Virgo is a Canadian film and television writer, producer and director who runs the production company, Conquering Lion Pictures, with producer Damon D'Oliveira. Virgo is best known for co-writing and directing an adaptation of the novel by Canadian writer Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes (2015), a six-part miniseries that aired on CBC Television in Canada and BET in the United States.
Suraj Sharma is an Indian actor who made his debut in the 2012 film Life of Pi. Directed by Ang Lee, the film was adapted from the novel of the same name, and earned Sharma critical acclaim as well as a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination. In 2014, he portrayed Aayan Ibrahim in season 4 of the Showtime series Homeland. From 2018 to 2020, he starred as Rakesh Singh in the CBS comedy-drama series God Friended Me.
Destiny Ekaragha is a British film director. She is only the third British black woman, following Ngozi Onwurah and Amma Asante, to have directed a feature-length film that was given cinema distribution in the UK.
Edward Berger is a West German-born Austrian and Swiss director and screenwriter. He notably directed German films Jack (2014), All My Loving (2019), and All Quiet on the Western Front (2022). For the latter, Berger received numerous accolades including the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and three BAFTA Awards for Best Film Not in the English Language, Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Allan Cubitt is a British television, film, and theatre writer, director, and producer and former teacher, best known for his work on Prime Suspect II and The Fall.
Jelani Alladin is an American actor, singer, and dancer. In his Broadway debut, he originated the role of Kristoff in the Frozen musical in 2018. Alladin starred as Marcus Gaines in the 2023 Peabody Award-winning miniseries Fellow Travelers.
James Kent is a British television and film director. He directed the feature films Testament of Youth and The Aftermath and the TV dramas The White Queen and The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister. He has also directed many documentaries, notably Chopin Saved My Life, 9/11: Phone Calls from the Towers and Holocaust: A Music Memorial Film from Auschwitz. He was nominated for the Breakthrough British Filmmaker award at the 2014 London Film Critics Circle Awards. Productions he has directed have been nominated for Golden Globe and Grierson awards and have won BAFTA and International Emmy awards.
Fellow Travelers is a Peabody Award-winning American historical romance political thriller television miniseries based on the 2007 novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon. Starring Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, it centers on the decades-long romance between two men who first meet during the height of McCarthyism in the 1950s. The series premiered on October 29, 2023, on Showtime following an October 27 release on Paramount+ with Showtime.