Adam McKay

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Adam McKay at the Berlinale 2019

Adam McKay (born April 17, 1968 in Philadelphia ) is an American screenwriter , film producer and film director .

Life

McKay studied at Pennsylvania State University and Temple University in Philadelphia. He co-founded the comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade , which also included Neil Flynn , Horatio Sanz, and later Amy Poehler . He was also a member of the theater group The Second City .

After this experience, McKay auditioned on the Saturday Night Live show to act as a cast member on camera. Although he could not succeed in the casting, the skits and scripts he submitted attracted attention and helped him to a position as a writer, which he held from 1995 to 2007 on the television show. For three years he worked as headwriter and staged parts of the show. He persuaded his former The Second City colleague Tina Fey to make some of her scripts available on Saturday Night Live . Fey inherited him as headwriter in 1999. Although McKay was never part of the show's ensemble, he appeared regularly as a spectator at the moderations of the guest stars during his time as headwriter.

After leaving SNL , he found himself with the actor Will Ferrell and wrote the comedies Anchorman - The Legend of Ron Burgundy , Ricky Bobby - King of Racing Drivers and Stepbrothers with him, which he also directed. Together with Ferrell he founded the production company " Gary Sanchez Productions ", which produced the film The Foot Fist Way and the series Eastbound & Down . In addition to Ferrell, he repeatedly cast the actors John C. Reilly , Seth Rogen and Kathryn Hahn in his films .

He also collaborated with Ferrell to create the highly regarded website funnyordie.com, which only shows comic short films. The website became famous for the video "The Landlord", which shows Ferrell and McKay being bullied by a 1.5 year old landlady (McKay's daughter). The video was viewed over 78 million times on this platform (as of January 2012).

Since May 2005 he has been a regular blogger for the online newspaper The Huffington Post .

In 2016 he received an Oscar for the best adapted screenplay for the feature film comedy The Big Short and was also nominated in the directing category. For his next film, Vice - The Second Man , about the life story of former US Vice President Dick Cheney , he was nominated for three Oscars in the categories of Best Picture , Best Director and Best Original Screenplay in 2019 .

McKay has been married to Shira Piven, a sister of actor Jeremy Piven , since 1996 and has two children with her.

Filmography (selection)

actor

Director

Screenwriter

producer

Awards

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ President Paris ( Memento of the original from September 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , on sueddeutsche.de , on August 6, 2008, accessed on April 12, 2009 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sueddeutsche.de
  2. ^ Toddler from Hell , on Spiegel Online , March 26, 2009, accessed April 12, 2009
personal data
SURNAME McKay, Adam
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American screenwriter, film producer and film director
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia