Film Courage: John, why do you love character-driven films?
John Gray, Writer, Director, Producer: I think it goes back to when I was a kid and I would watch movies in theaters or sometimes even things I saw on television and I would get so involved with these characters. I grew up in Brooklyn in a working-class neighborhood. Any opportunity that I had to be transported out of that into a different world with people I didn’t know anything about, I was always very interested in that. The most important thing that inspired me most was those moments in the theater where I would sit there and recognize something in a character that I recognized from myself and I realized I’m not alone. That to me was the single most powerful thing that bonded me to storytelling and to movies. Very early on I thought to myself I would love to make someone feel that way. I would love to tell a story that someone sits there and goes Oh wow, that’s me! That’s my family. I’m Okay there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m not a misfit there’s, there’s somebody else. That’s really why I love it so much and I’ve always tried to make sure it’s informed with interesting characters and some depth and an arc of somewhere to go.
Film Courage: Do you remember those first few movies that you watched wherever you were in New York?
John: I do, I’m embarrassed to admit it but the first movie I saw my mother took me to at the Loew’s Oriental Theatre in Brooklyn and it was called…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
Brooklyn born John Gray is an award winning writer-director-producer of films and television, and the creator of the long running TV series, Ghost Whisperer. He has written and directed many feature films and movies for television, including White Irish Drinkers, starring Stephen Lang and Karen Allen; Martin And Lewis, starring Sean Hayes and Jeremy Northam; the Emmy® nominated A Place For Annie, with Sissy Spacek; the Emmy® nominated mini-series Haven with Natasha Richardson and Anne Bancroft; Helter Skelter, and many others. Gray has directed numerous episodes of broadcast and cable series, including multiple episodes of the NBC series GRIMM and was also the producing director of the CBS series RECKLESS. Gray’s acclaimed short films have played and are currently playing in film festivals all over the world including FRENCH KISS, which has also notched 6.3 million views to date on YouTube. He is married to writer-filmmaker Melissa Jo Peltier, and they make their home in New York and Cape Cod, MA. John’s new novel The Desecrated follows Jennifer, a college dropout hoping to regroup, who joins the night shift at the NYC Morgue.
BUY THE BOOK – THE DESECRATED
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