Age: 56
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Biography
Adam McKay (born April 17, 1968) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, comedian, and actor. McKay served as head writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live for two seasons. He directed Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Step Brothers (2008), The Other Guys (2010), and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013). McKay has a creative partnership with actor Will Ferrell, with whom he co-wrote all except one of these films.
The Big Short (2015) was the first film McKay directed without Ferrell in the cast. Venturing into more dramatic territory, he was nominated for several awards including the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and two British Academy Film Awards, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, with McKay and co-writer Charles Randolph winning Best Adapted Screenplay at each respective ceremony.
McKay and Ferrell produced their comedy website Funny or Die through their company Gary Sanchez Productions.
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Personal life
McKay was born in 1968 in Denver, Colorado, to a cocktail waitress mother and a bassist father. He was raised in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Great Valley High School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and attended Penn State and Temple University. McKay dropped out from the university a semester-and-a-half before he was set to earn his bachelor’s. He described it as, "settling with an imaginary degree”.
He is one of the founding members of the Upright Citizens Brigade improv comedy group and a former performer at Chicago's Improv Olympic, where he was a member of the improv group, The Family, whose members included Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, Neil Flynn, Miles Stroth, and Ali Farahnakian, and Child's Play Touring Theatre. While a member of the mainstage cast at Second City, he wrote and performed in that company's landmark revue, Pinata Full of Bees. In several politically charged sketches, McKay played characters like Noam Chomsky as a substitute kindergarten teacher, and a hapless personnel manager trying to inform a corporate vice president (Scott Adsit) of some disastrous IQ test results without losing his own job. The latter performance was excerpted in Second City's 40th anniversary compilation.
McKay has an essential tremor, a benign neurological disorder that sometimes causes shaking. He is also a supporter of the Democratic Party and other liberal causes. He endorsed Bernie Sanders for President of the United States during the 2016 Presidential Election.
In 1996, he married director and actress Shira Piven, who directed the 2014 feature film Welcome to Me starring Kristen Wiig. His brother-in-law is actor Jeremy Piven.
Career
Writing, acting and producing
McKay originally auditioned for Saturday Night Live to be an onscreen performer, but did not make the cut. However, the scripts he submitted to the long-running sketch show earned him a job as writer from 1995 to 2001, including three seasons as head writer. He also directed a number of short films for the show, including the original SNL Digital Shorts. McKay encouraged his Second City friend Tina Fey to submit some of her scripts to Saturday Night Live, and she later succeeded him as head writer on the show. Though McKay was never an actual SNL cast member, he did make several on-camera appearances over the years and had a recurring role as an obnoxious audience member named "Keith" who would often shout insults at the celebrity hosts during their opening monologue.
He rewrote the script for the Marvel Studios feature film Ant-Man (2015), which Peyton Reed directed.
Shortly after leaving SNL, McKay teamed up with comedian Will Ferrell to write the comedy films Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights (2006), Step Brothers (2008) and The Other Guys (2010), all of which he also directed and made cameo appearances in as an actor. He also produced Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby|Talladega Nights, Step Brothers and features both him and his young daughter, Pearl, whom Ferrell and his wife bait to say curse words. Pearl also starred in a second video titled Good Cop, Baby Cop. Ferrell and McKay co-produce the HBO series Eastbound & Down.
McKay was also one of the writers (of the story) for the feature film, The Campaign (2012), and produced the film Daddy's Home (2015), the latter of which re-united The Other Guys stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, and was directed by Sean Anders. He also wrote the screenplay for and directed The Big Short (2015), the feature film adaptation of Michael Lewis's book about the 2006-2010 financial crisis, and the build-up of the financial and credit bubble; the film starred Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei, and Byron Mann.
He also produced the films Land of the Lost (2009), The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009), The Virginity Hit (2010), Casa de Mi Padre (2012), Bachelorette (2012), Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (2012), The Campaign (2012), Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), Tammy (2014), Welcome to Me (2014), Get Hard (2015), Sleeping with Other People (2015), Daddy's Home (2015), and The Boss (2016).
In addition to Eastbound & Down, he has also produced the TV series Big Lake, the miniseries The Spoils of Babylon, and The Chris Gethard Show.
Directing
McKay has directed, and co-written with Will Ferrell, the feature films Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Step Brothers (2008), The Other Guys (2010), Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013). He has also directed an "alternate film" about Ron Burgundy that is considered a companion to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) entitled Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (2004), which is made up mostly of alternative takes, deleted scenes and scrapped sub-plots from the original film strung together with a narrative.
McKay directed and co-wrote with Ferrell the George W. Bush Broadway show, You're Welcome America. He produced the horror-action film Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. McKay is in talks to direct the remake of Uptown Saturday Night, with Denzel Washington and Will Smith.
McKay directed the TV movie documentary Lifecasters (2013).
He has directed a number of short films, including a good number of digital shots for Saturday Night Live, and the short videos The Landlord and Good Cop, Baby Cop for Funny or Die that star his daughter Pearl. Among the other short films he has directed include The Procedure (2007) starring Will Ferrell, Willem Dafoe and Andy Richter, Green Team (2008) starring Ferrell, John C. Reilly and himself, and the K-Swiss commercial, Kenny Powers: The K-Swiss MFCEO (2011), starring Danny McBride as Kenny Powers from Eastbound & Down, which he co-produces with Ferrell and has also directed an episode of ("Chapter 5", Season 1, Episode 5).
He directed and wrote the feature film adaptation of the Michael Lewis non-fiction book The Big Short, released in 2015. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work in the film, winning his first Academy Award following his victory in the latter category. In 2016 he and co-writer Charles Randolph received the USC Scripter Award.
In 2016 he became attached to the superhero film Irredeemable based on the comic of the same name by Mark Waid.
Podcasting
Since November 2015, McKay has hosted the science/comedy podcast Surprisingly Awesome with Adam Davidson, produced by Gimlet Media.
Filmography
Television
| Year | Title | Credit | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Producer | Writer | Actor | ||
| 1995-2001 | Saturday Night Live | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2009-2013 | Eastbound & Down | Yes | Yes | ||
| 2010 | Big Lake | Yes | |||
| 2010-2011 | Funny or Die Presents | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2015 | The Chris Gethard Show | Yes | |||
Film
| Year | Title | Credit | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Producer | Writer | Actor | |||
| 2004 | Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy | Yes | Yes | Yes | Role: Custodian | |
| 2004 | Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie | Yes | Yes | Yes | Role: Custodian | |
| 2006 | Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Role: Terry Cheveaux |
| 2008 | Step Brothers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Role: Man without Glasses |
| 2009 | Land of the Lost | Yes | ||||
| 2009 | The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard | Yes | ||||
| 2010 | The Other Guys | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Role: Dirty Mike |
| 2010 | The Virginity Hit | Yes | ||||
| 2011 | Casa de Mi Padre | Yes | ||||
| 2012 | Bachelorette | Yes | ||||
| 2012 | Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie | Yes | ||||
| 2012 | The Campaign | Yes | Yes | Story writer | ||
| 2013 | Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters | Yes | ||||
| 2013 | Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues | Yes | Yes | |||
| 2014 | The Spoils of Babylon | Yes | ||||
| 2014 | Tammy | Yes | ||||
| 2014 | Welcome to Me | Yes | ||||
| 2015 | Sleeping with Other People | Yes | ||||
| 2015 | Get Hard | Yes | Yes | Story writer | ||
| 2015 | A Deadly Adoption | Yes | ||||
| 2015 | Ant-Man | Yes | ||||
| 2015 | The Big Short | Yes | Yes | Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Adapted Screenplay USC Scripter Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated—Academy Award for Best Director Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Direction Nominated—Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing - Feature Film Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay |
||
| 2015 | Daddy's Home | Yes | ||||
| 2016 | The Boss | Yes | ||||
| 2017 | The House | Yes | ||||
Video shorts
| Year | Title | Credit | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Producer | Writer | Actor | |||
| 2007 | The Procedure | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| 2007 | The Landlord | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Role: Friend |
| 2007 | Good Cop, Baby Cop | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Role: Policeman |
| 2008 | Green Team | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Role: Erin Gossamer |
| 2008 | Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad | Yes | ||||
| 2008 | Ron Howard's Call to Action | Yes | ||||
| 2010 | Presidential Reunion | Yes | ||||
| 2010 | Will Ferrell's NYPD Recruitment Video | Yes | ||||
| 2011 | A Public Statement from Anthony Weiner's Penis | Yes | ||||
| 2014 | COPS: Ferguson | Yes | ||||
| 2015 | Mexican Donald Trump | Yes | ||||
[ Source: Wikipedia ]
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