Paul Feig

A graduate of the University of Southern California Film School, PAUL FEIG (Director, Writer) was a winner of the school’s Jack Oakie Award for Comedy in Film in 1984.  After film school, Feig worked as a script reader for producer Michael Phillips (Taxi Driver) until he went on “The $25,000 Pyramid” and won $29,000 (“I always was an over-achiever,” says Feig).  These winnings allowed Feig to leave his job and pursue his longtime dream of being a professional stand-up comedian (Feig had started doing open mike stand-up nights in Detroit comedy clubs at the age of 15).

At the same time Feig was working professionally as a stand-up, he tried his hand at acting and soon landed a series regular role in the short-lived CBS television series “Dirty Dancing.”  From there, his acting career took off as Paul became a series regular on the television series “Good Sports,” “The Jackie Thomas Show,”  “The Louie Show,” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”  He also appeared in such films as Paul Maslansky’s Ski Patrol, Disney’s Heavyweights, and Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do.

It was only after being abruptly written out of the series “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” that Feig began to sour on the actor’s life.  This drove him to write, produce and direct his first independent feature film, entitled Life Sold Separately.  It played on the festival circuit and was ultimately chosen by Movieline Magazine to tour college campuses across the United States.

While out on tour with his film, Feig wrote a spec pilot script for a TV series about high school set in the 1980s called “Freaks and Geeks,” which he then sold to DreamWorks Television through his longtime friend, producer Judd Apatow.  NBC ordered the pilot and ended up making 18 episodes of the show, with Feig serving as the show’s creator and co-executive producer.  Feig was nominated for two comedy writing Emmy Awards, one for the pilot episode and one for the series finale, which he also directed.  The series has recently been released on DVD, in both a 6-disc regular edition and an 8-disc collector’s edition, which also features a mock 80-page high school yearbook from the series fictitious McKinley High.  The collector’s edition was recently listed as number 40 in “Entertainment Weekly’s” Must List edition.

Feig’s second feature film which he wrote and directed, entitled I Am David, was based on the Danish book of the same name by Anne Holm.  It was released by Lion’s Gate Entertainment and Walden Media, and sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.  It stars Jim Caviezel and Joan Plowright and is the uplifting story about an 11-year-old boy (newcomer Ben Tibber) in 1952 who escapes from a Bulgarian labor camp and makes his way across Europe in search of his family and identity.  The film garnered attention on the festival circuit, winning the audience award at the Austin Film Festival, a Crystal Heart Award from the Heartland Film Festival, and Best Picture awards at the San Diego Film Festival and FilmFest Kansas City, as well as several best acting awards for Ben Tibber and Joan Plowright.  It was released on DVD April 5th, 2005.

Feig’s third feature was the Warner Brother’s holiday, family-comedy Unaccompanied Minors, based on an episode of THIS AMERICAN LIFE about kids stranded in an airport on Christmas eve. The film stars Wilmer Valderrama, Lewis Black, and Tyler James Williams, along with an extensive series of cameos including  cast members of The Kids In The Hall and The Office. The film was nominated for a Taurus Stunt Award for a sequence of a snowy-downhill race between a canoe, a kayak, and other household items. Feig also received the 2006 Parents Television Council’s Seal of Approval in honor of the film. Unaccompanied Minors is available on several international DVDs, and was released domestically in August 2007.

Feig has also directed seven episodes of Fox’s Emmy Award-winning series, “Arrested Development” and NBC’s hit shows “The Office” and “30 Rock,” as well as multiple episodes of the Showtime series “Weeds" and an episode of AMC’s original series “MAD MEN.”  Paul’s work on “The Office” earned him a nomination for Outstanding Direction in a Comedy Series in 2008, and he joined “The Office” as a co-executive producer for their fifth season.

Feig is the author of Kick Me – Adventures in Adolescence, published by Random House in 2002. Kick Me is a book of humorous essays about Feig’s childhood and school career growing up in suburban Michigan, and was chosen as a BookSense 76 pick in 2003.  In 2005, Feig published the follow up memoir, entitled Superstud, Or How I Became a 24 Year Old Virgin, which became a New York Times best seller.  In September of 2008, Feig’s first young-adult fiction novel, the sci-fi/fantasy/comedy IGNATIOUS MACFARLAND: FREQUENAUT! was published by Little Brown Books for Young Readers. It is the first in a series.

Feig lives in Los Angeles with his wife Laurie and his two Scottish Terriers, and despite being married, is still as big a geek as he ever was.