Introduction
Steven Conrad (born 1968) is an American screenwriter, film producer and director.
Personal life
Born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Conrad briefly attended Florida State University before transferring to Northwestern University, where he majored in creative writing. His mother was a teacher at St. Gregory the Great Catholic School.
Conrad is the brother of actor Chris Conrad. He lives in Chicago.
Career
Shortly after attending Northwestern, at age 19, he sold his first screenplay, Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, adapted from a short story he had written for a creative writing class. Eleven years passed before he tackled his next project, Lawrence Melm, which he scripted and directed. He followed this with The Weather Man (which he also produced) and The Pursuit of Happyness. He wrote, directed, and edited The Promotion, which premiered at South by Southwest in March 2008 and was released by Dimension Films later that year. His projects include an adaptation of the Chang-Rae Lee novel Aloft for Scott Rudin; Chad Schmidt, about a talented actor with a resemblance to Brad Pitt and The Expanding Mailman with Jack Black.
In 2013, he adapted a James Thurber short story for the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, directed by and starring Ben Stiller.
In 2015, he developed Patriot for Amazon Studios. Its pilot led to a full series order, and it premiered in its entirety on February 24, 2017. In addition to executive-producing the series, he has also written and directed most of the first season's episodes.
Filmography
- Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993) – writer
- The Weather Man (2005) – writer, co-producer
- The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) – writer
- The Promotion (2008) – director, writer
- The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) – writer
- Unfinished Business (2015) – writer
- Patriot (2015-) – executive producer, writer, director
- Wonder (2017) – writer