Kirsten Sheridan is an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated writer, a studio feature director, and an independent producer.
Born into a family of filmmakers, Kirsten spent her childhood immersed in the theater world, spending all her free time backstage and in the lighting box at the Irish Arts Center in New York. At 12 years old, her first film experience was on set playing Daniel Day Lewis’s little sister in the Oscar-winning film My Left Foot. She went on to graduate with a Distinction from Ireland’s National Film School.
As a teenager Kirsten won The Film Institute of Ireland/Guinness Outstanding Young Irish Talent Award and The Miramax Best Irish Screenplay Award. At 26 years old, she made her directorial debut with the independent feature Disco Pigs. The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for the Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award. Sheridan was nominated for Best Director at the British Independent Film Awards, and the Irish Film and Television Awards. She won Best Director at the Giffoni Film Festival.
Kirsten’s first studio feature film as a writer garnered her an Academy Award nomination along with her father, director Jim Sheridan, and her sister, writer Naomi Sheridan. The semi-autobiographical film, In America was nominated for 3 Oscars, 7 Critics Choice Awards, 2 Golden Globe Awards, 1 Writers Guild of America Award, 2 National Board of Review Awards, 2 New York Film Critic Awards, 6 Independent Spirit Awards, 3 British Independent Film Awards, a SAG Award, and a Humanitas Prize. Actors Samantha Morton and Djimon Housou were both Oscar nominated. It launched the career of newcomer Sarah Bolger.
The film won the AFI Movie of the Year Award, AFI Fest Audience Award, and a PGA Award.
For her writing, Kirsten won a Critics Choice Award, a National Board of Review Award, a New York Film Critics Award, and a Christopher Award.
At 29 years old, Kirsten directed her first studio feature, the Warner Brothers modern fairytale August Rush, the cherished story of an orphaned musical prodigy who uses his gift to find his birth parents. The film starred veteran actor and comedian Robin Williams, renowned actors Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Freddie Highmore, and the freshly Oscar nominated Terrence Howard. It launched the career of Alex O’Laughlin.
August Rush placed in the top ten at the American Box Office, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Original Soundtrack and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song.
In 2010 Kirsten co-founded The Factory with fellow film directors John Carney and Lance Daly. The Factory was Ireland’s first filmmakers collective. A place for filmmakers created by filmmakers that birthed a new wave of Irish talent. There, Sheridan directed Dollhouse, an experimental film, featuring a cast of complete unknowns, with the dialogue and action being discovered by the actors and improvised live during shooting. It was Jack Reynor and Seana Kerslake’s first film, both of whom immediately went on to gain multiple leading roles internationally. Dollhouse premiered in Berlin and SXSW, won the Best Acting Award at the Odesa Film Festival, won the Innovation Award at the New York Irish Film Festival and Best International Feature at the Lund Film Festival.
Over the last 20 years Sheridan has written feature film scripts, television episodes, adaptations, revisions and rewrites. She has worked with HBO, Amazon Studios, Fox Searchlight, Warner Brothers, Universal Content Productions, Peacock, FX, Harpo, Working Title, Color Force, Gold Circle, Sky and more.
Kirsten has adapted books from such authors as Roddy Doyle, Sue Monk Kidd and Cecilia Aherne. She has written biopics on such people as Amy Winehouse, Joe Strummer, and Olga Korbut.
Sheridan currently lives in Los Angeles, working in film and television, raising her three kids, and mentoring up and coming talent. Through her latest venture, The Programme LA, she is hoping to create a home for a new wave of talent, and also for her three kids, whom she encouraged to become accountants and lawyers, but has since been forced to accept the fact that they will live a life in the arts.
