Gavin O'Connor Biography

Gavin O'Connor is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, playwright and actor.

Life and career

Gavin O'Connor was raised in Huntington, New York, on Long Island. He wrote and produced Ted Demme's directorial debut, the short film The Bet. Three years later, he made his own feature film co"writing and directing debut with Comfortably Numb, about the moral dilemmas facing a Connecticut preppie-turned-New York City prosecutor; the film was screened at both the Cannes Film Festival and the Boston Film Festival. O'Connor then turned to the stage, producing, writing, and starring in the Off-Broadway play Rumblings of a Romance Renaissance in 1997.

At the same time, O'Connor began work on a screenplay based on then-wife Angela Shelton's memories of her childhood spent on the road with her serial-marrying mother. Impressed by Tony Award-winning British actress Janet McTeer's appearance on Charlie Rose's talk show in 1997, he was determined to cast her in what had become Tumbleweeds (in which he co-starred); he was forced to finance the film himself when potential backers expressed their concern at McTeer's relative anonymity in the States. The movie won the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival; McTeer's performance earned her a Golden Globe as Best Actress and Academy Award and Screen Actors Guild nominations in the same category; and Kimberly J. Brown, cast as her pre-teen daughter, won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance.

After serving as executive producer of several smaller, independent projects, O'Connor directed Walt Disney Pictures' Miracle (2004), a film about the United States hockey team's victory in the 1980 Winter Olympics. He also produced the HBO Film, "The Smashing Machine", that chronicled the struggles of fighter Mark Kerr.

With his twin brother Greg, O'Connor founded Final Cut Features, designed to assist independent filmmakers with post-production financing and services. As either producer or director (or both), he became involved in six projects that were scheduled for release in 2007 and 2008

O'Connor filmed the MMA film Warrior, for which he wrote the screenplay and directed. The film received a 2011 release, through Lions Gate Entertainment.

As of 2013, O'Connor is working on adapting the novel The Hustler into a stage play. In April 2013, he signed on to direct Jane Got a Gun.

He is engaged to actress/model Brooke Burns.