Steven Conrad

Steven Conrad (born May 20, 1968)^[1] is an American filmmaker.

Steven Conrad
Steve Conrad discusses Patriot for New America in 2017
Born	(1968-05-20) May 20, 1968 (age 56) Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Florida State University Northwestern University
Occupation(s)	Screenwriter, director, film producer
Years active	1986-present

Personal life

Steven Conrad was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and briefly attended Florida State University before transferring to Northwestern University, where he majored in creative writing. His brother, Chris Conrad, is an actor and has frequently appeared in Steven's productions. Their mother was a teacher at St. Gregory the Great Catholic School, Plantation, Broward County, Florida.^{[citation needed]}

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 wrote 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.^[2]

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, Conrad developed Patriot for Amazon Studios. Its pilot led to a full series order,^[3] and it premiered in its entirety on February 24, 2017.^[4] In addition to executive-producing the series, he has also written and directed most of the first season's episodes.^{[citation needed]}

In the same year, Conrad re-wrote the script for Wonder, a film adaptation of the 2012 novel of the same name by R. J. Palacio. The script was also written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Chbosky, with the latter having directed the film,^[5] which was released on November 17, 2017.

In 2019, Conrad's series Perpetual Grace, LTD, starring Sir Ben Kingsley and featuring many of the actors from Patriot, premiered on Epix. In 2021, Conrad's stop-motion animated series Ultra City Smiths premiered on AMC+.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Credited as			Notes
		Director	Writer	Producer
1993	Wrestling Ernest Hemingway	No	Yes	No
2004	Lawrence Melm	Yes	Yes	No	Directorial debut
2005	The Weather Man	No	Yes	Yes
2006	The Pursuit of Happyness	No	Yes	No
2008	The Promotion	Yes	Yes	No
2013	The Secret Life of Walter Mitty	No	Yes	No
2015	Unfinished Business	No	Yes	No
2017	Wonder	No	Yes	No

Television

Year	Title	Credited as			Notes
		Director	Writer	Producer
2011	Connie Banks the Actor	Yes	Yes	No	Unaired pilot
2013	Timms Valley	Yes	Yes	No	Unaired pilot
2015–2018	Patriot	Yes	Yes	Yes	Creator; Writer (14 episodes), director (14 episodes)
2019	Perpetual Grace, LTD	Yes	Yes	Yes	Co-creator; writer (10 episodes), director (6 episodes)
2021	Ultra City Smiths	Yes	Yes	Yes	Creator; writer (6 episodes), director (6 episodes)

Awards

Year	Award	Award category	Nominated work	Result
2018	Critics' Choice Television Awards	Best Comedy Series	Patriot	Nominated
	Critics' Choice Awards	Best Adapted Screenplay	Wonder	Nominated