James Gray | |
|---|---|
 Gray in 2017 | |
| Born | April 14, 1969 New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | USC School of Cinematic Arts |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Spouse |
Alexandra Dickson (m. 2005) |
| Children | 3 |
James Gray (born April 14, 1969)[1] is an American film director and screenwriter. Since his feature debut Little Odessa in 1994, he has made seven other features including We Own the Night (2007), Two Lovers (2008), The Immigrant (2013), The Lost City of Z (2016), Ad Astra (2019), and Armageddon Time (2022). Five of his films have competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.[2]
Gray was born in New York City and grew up in the neighborhood of Flushing.[3][4] He is of Russian Jewish descent,[5][6][7][8] with grandparents from Ostropol, Western Ukraine, which at that time was a part of the USSR.[9] The original family name was "Grayevsky" or "Greyzerstein."[10] His father was once an electronics contractor. Gray attended the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, where his student film, Cowboys and Angels, helped him get an agent and the attention of producer Paul Webster, who encouraged him to write a script which he could produce.[11][12]
In 1994, at age 25, Gray made his first feature film Little Odessa, starring Tim Roth as a hit man confronted by his younger brother upon returning to his hometown, "Little Odessa," a section of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.[13] The film won the Silver Lion at the 51st Venice International Film Festival.[14]
In 1998, Gray began shooting his second film, The Yards, a crime drama set in the commuter rail yards in New York City. The film was released theatrically by Miramax two years later on October 12, 2000.[15]
In March 2006, Gray began production on his third film, We Own the Night, which he had been wanting to shoot since the early 2000s. Set in 1988, it stars Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg as two brothers, one a nightclub manager with ties to the mob, and the former a police detective who wages an all-out war on drugs. The film screened in competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival in May,[16] receiving widely divergent reviews from international critics, and was released theatrically in the U.S. in October.[17]
After that film's success, Gray was given creative freedom for Two Lovers which was loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s "White Nights".[18] The film made its premiere at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
Gray co-wrote the screenplay for Guillaume Canet's film Blood Ties, a remake of the French thriller Rivals.[19] This collaboration with Canet led Gray to meeting his partner Marion Cotillard, whom he would cast in his next film The Immigrant.[20] It tells the story of a Polish nurse who is separated from her sister at Ellis Island and forced into prostitution by a theater manager, played by Joaquin Phoenix. The film, which was previously titled Lowlife and The Nightingale, marked Gray's fourth collaboration with Phoenix. It was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.[21]
In 2015, Gray directed a television commercial for Chanel men's fragrance, Bleu de Chanel, starring Gaspard Ulliel.[22] It was filmed in Los Angeles and released on February 5, 2015.[23]
In October 2016, Gray's film The Lost City of Z premiered at the New York Film Festival. The film, based on the book by David Grann, depicts the life of explorer Percy Fawcett, played by Charlie Hunnam.[24]
At the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, it was reported that Gray would next direct his long-gestated sci-fi space epic Ad Astra.[25] Brad Pitt signed on to star in April 2017 and the rest of the cast joined later that year. Ad Astra premiered at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, 2019 and was theatrically released in the United States on September 20, 2019 by 20th Century Fox.[26] Gray later stated that the film that was released to theaters was not his cut.[27]
On June 17, 2020, it was officially confirmed that his next film, titled Armageddon Time, would be a coming-of-age drama loosely based on Gray's childhood memories, with Anne Hathaway, Anthony Hopkins and Jeremy Strong cast in the film.[28] The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2022 and was released in the United States on October 28, 2022 by Focus Features.
After Little Odessa, Gray was offered the script for The Devil's Own by Brad Pitt, a friend of his. Gray turned it down and the film was ultimately directed by Alan J. Pakula.[29] He also passed up the opportunity to direct Good Will Hunting.
In 1997, Gray was in negotiations with producer Art Linson to direct the biopic Killer Spy, about CIA agent Aldrich Ames, based on the novel Betrayal.[30] Kevin Spacey was being talked about for the starring role of Ames.
In 1999, Gray was in talks to direct Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston in Waking Up in Reno for Miramax. The film was made three years later but without the involvement of Gray, Pitt or Aniston.[31]
It was reported in 2000 that Gray would direct and co-write Edgardo Mortara, a film based on the infamous 1858 kidnapping of the 6-year-old Jewish boy by the Papal police.[32] Gray was to collaborate with writer Rob Eshman on the screenplay.
In 2003, it was rumored that Gray had written an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novelette "Paycheck". Prior to John Woo being selected, Brett Ratner was in talks to direct.[33] A film was released later that year, but Gray had no involvement.
In 2006, Gray was planning to direct Alphabet City, based on the 1995 novel by Steven Knight, who also penned the first draft of the script.[34]
In 2010, Gray was hired to rewrite the script of the Charlie Hunnam-scripted Vlad, which would have been a period action film based on the story of Dracula. Anthony Mandler had been attached to direct the film.[35]
In January 2011, it was reported that Gray would be directing a film adaptation of Mark Greaney's novel The Gray Man written by Adam Cozad. The project was first set up at New Regency.[36][37] Brad Pitt was initially cast to star, but by October 2015, he and Gray were no longer involved with the film.
In April 2011, Jeremy Renner enlisted Gray to write the screenplay for an untitled Steve McQueen biopic with Renner in the role under his production banner The Combine.[38] "I did it more or less as a favor to Jeremy and to honor Steve McQueen," Gray said.[20] Heavily researched and based on two books by Marshall Terrill, Portrait of an American Rebel and The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon, the film was initially going to be directed by Ivan Zachariáš, although Gray later stated in 2013 that he may end up directing it himself at some point.[39]
In August 2013, it was announced that Warner Bros. tapped Gray to write and direct White Devil, a film based on the life of John Willis.[40]
It was reported in April 2015 by Variety that Gray was to executive produce and serve as creative consultant on Hard Apple, an "adult-skewing" animated series inspired by New York-born author Jerome Charyn's Isaac Sidel novels.[41]
In April 2018, MGM closed a deal for Gray to direct I Am Pilgrim, an adaptation of the espionage novel by Terry Hayes.[42] He was slated to direct the film after he finished shooting Ad Astra. However, Gray confirmed in 2022 that the project is officially dead, and that it had got lost in the "business mess" with studios changing hands.[43]
In April 2022, Gray announced plans to develop a limited series about novelist Norman Mailer based on J. Michael Lennon's biography Norman Mailer: A Double Life.[44]
In October 2022, Gray said he was interested in wrangling back the cast for a semi-sequel to Armageddon Time, to focus solely on his mother, who was portrayed by Anne Hathaway. "The story goes in a very unexpected place," said Gray, "Because my father actually did achieve some financial success but wound up getting it all confiscated by the government when he got into legal trouble. At the same time, my mother found out she was dying. And so, it's going to be, I think, something about that period."[45] That same month, Deadline reported that Gray's next film would be a biopic about a young John F. Kennedy that focused on his time in World War II where he saved his crew from a sinking patrol boat.[46][47] The film was titled Mayday 109 and had been in development for several years before Gray boarded the project.[48] Bill Skarsgård is attached to star as Kennedy.[49]
In November 2022, Gray revealed in an interview for Collider that one of his dream projects was an epic about the Russian Revolution called The Dream of a Thousand Men, but that it was unlikely to be made anytime soon, if at all, due to Russia's 2022 Ukraine invasion.[50]
In March 2023, it was announced Gray would direct Ezekiel Moss, a Depression-set ghost story written by Keith Bunin, for Focus Features.[51]
In February 2024, Gray replaced Neil Burger as the director of Summer Frost, based on Blake Crouch's source material, which had first been announced back in 2020. Zoe Saldana is attached to star in the film.[52]
Gray also turned down the role played by Noah Taylor in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.[53] He did, however, appear in a brief cameo in a deleted scene in Love Jones.[54]
In 2019, it was reported that Gray was to stage Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, his first opera, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris that November. French fashion designer Christian Lacroix did the costumes for the production.[55]
Gray married Alexandra Dickson in 2005. The couple have three children.[56]
Gray, who frequently cites his inspirations, mentioned Francis Ford Coppola, Claude Chabrol,[57] Luchino Visconti,[58] Jean Renoir, John Ford, François Truffaut, Stanley Kubrick,[59] David Lean,[39] Robert Bresson, Federico Fellini, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Michael Cimino, John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese,[60] William Friedkin,[61] Akira Kurosawa,[62] and Valerio Zurlini[63] all as filmmakers who have influenced his work. His influences however, are not only limited to film as Gray also admitted he has taken influence from classical paintings as well as opera, specifically in the verismo tradition.[64][58]
In 2022, Gray participated in the Sight and Sound film polls. Held every ten years to select the greatest films of all time, contemporary directors were asked to select ten films of their choice. Gray chose the following, in no order:[65]
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Cowboys and Angels | Yes | No | No | Student short film |
| 1994 | Little Odessa | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2000 | The Yards | Yes | Yes | No | Co-written with Matt Reeves |
| 2007 | We Own the Night | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2008 | Two Lovers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-written with Richard Menello |
| 2013 | Blood Ties | No | Yes | Executive | Co-written with Guillaume Canet |
| The Immigrant | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-written with Richard Menello | |
| 2016 | The Lost City of Z | Yes | Yes | Yes | Based on the book by David Grann |
| 2019 | Ad Astra | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-written with Ethan Gross |
| 2022 | Armageddon Time | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| TBA | Mayday | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-written with Samuel Franco and Evan Kilgore |
| Ezekiel Moss | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-written with Keith Bunin | |
| Summer Frost | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Year | Title | Episode |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | The Red Road | "Arise My Love, Shake Off This Dream" (S1 E1) |
| Year | Award | Category | Title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Cannes Film Festival | Palme d'Or | The Yards | Nominated |
| 2007 | We Own the Night | Nominated | ||
| 2008 | Two Lovers | Nominated | ||
| 2013 | The Immigrant | Nominated | ||
| 2022 | Armageddon Time | Nominated | ||
| 2008 | César Awards | Best Foreign Film | We Own the Night | Nominated |
| 2009 | Two Lovers | Nominated | ||
| 1996 | Independent Spirit Awards | Best First Feature | Little Odessa | Nominated |
| Best First Screenplay | Nominated | |||
| 2010 | Best Director | Two Lovers | Nominated | |
| 1994 | Venice International Film Festival | Golden Lion | Little Odessa | Nominated |
| Silver Lion | Won | |||
| 2019 | Golden Lion | Ad Astra | Nominated |
