Ryan Murphy Biography

Ryan Murphy (born November 30, 1965) is an American film and television screenwriter, director, and producer. Murphy is best known for his work on the FX television series Nip/Tuck, Glee, and American Horror Story with his writing partner Brad Falchuk.

Background

Murphy grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, in an Irish Catholic family. He attended Catholic school from first through eighth grade, and graduated from Warren Central High School (Indianapolis). He has described his mother as a "beauty queen who left it all to stay at home and take care of her two sons." She wrote five books and worked in communications for over 20 years before retiring. His father worked in the newspaper industry as a circulation director before he retired after 30 years.

After coming out as gay, Murphy saw his first therapist, who found nothing wrong with him other than being "too precocious for his own good." Murphy performed with a choir as a child, which would later inform his work on Glee.

Murphy attended Indiana University, Bloomington. While at college, he was a staff member of the school newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, and he was a member of the school's 'Singing Hoosiers' show choir.

Career

Murphy started as a journalist working for The Miami Herald, The Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, Knoxville News Sentinel and Entertainment Weekly. He began scriptwriting in the late 1990s, when Steven Spielberg purchased his script, Why Can't I Be Audrey Hepburn?.

Television

Murphy started his career in television in 1999 with the teen comedy series Popular. The show aired on The WB for two seasons.

Murphy is the Golden Globe-winning creator of Nip/Tuck, which aired on FX and was both a commercial and critical hit. He produced, wrote, and directed many episodes; in 2004, Murphy earned his first ever Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. Murphy took the show's signature line, "Tell me what you don't like about yourself," from a plastic surgeon he met when he was a journalist researching an undercover story on plastic surgery in Beverly Hills.

Murphy has also created a couple of failed pilots. The WB sitcom pilot St. Sass starring Delta Burke and Heather Matarazzo was not picked up. In 2008, Murphy wrote and directed the FX pilot Pretty/Handsome, which also was not picked up.

One of Murphy's current projects is the FOX musical comedy-drama Glee, co-created with Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. Fox aired a preview episode on May 19, 2009, following the season finale of American Idol; the show aired its first regular season episode on September 9, 2009. The show's early success in its planned thirteen-episode run led the network to order an additional nine episodes for the spring, making it the first new fall series in 2009 to get a full season order of twenty-two episodes. It was announced during the last half of the first season that FOX had ordered a complete second and third season of Glee due to high ratings and positive feedback about the show and its characters. He won his first Emmy for directing the pilot episode of Glee, while the show received a record 19 nominations including Outstanding Comedy Series, although it lost the latter to Modern Family while winning in four categories. The show was nominated for 12 Emmys for its second season, and has been renewed for a fifth and sixth season.

Another project of Murphy's with Falchuk, American Horror Story, premiered on FX on October 5, 2011 and was nominated for 17 Emmys in its debut season. The series is currently in its second season, which began on October 31, 2012. The new season featured some of the same cast as the first, but playing different characters and in a different setting.

Murphy is one of four executive producers on the reality television series The Glee Project, which premiered on Oxygen on June 12, 2011. The show features a group of contestants vying for the prize of a seven-episode arc on Glee, with one being eliminated each week until the winner is chosen from those remaining on the final episode. The show has been renewed for a second season.

Murphy and Glee co-executive producer Ali Adler have created The New Normal, a half-hour comedy that "centers on a gay couple and the surrogate who will carry their child," and is set to air on NBC beginning in the fall of 2012. According to Entertainment Weekly, there was a bidding war in October 2011 between ABC, NBC, and FOX for the project. The announcement that NBC had officially ordered a pilot episode for the series was made on January 27, 2012, and a series order followed on May 7, 2012. The series is based on Murphy's own experiences having a child via surrogate, with the main characters, Bryan and David, named for Ryan and his husband.

In April 2013, it was announced that HBO has given a pilot order for Murphy's new sexuality drama Open, which is set to start filming in Fall 2013.

Films

In 2006, Murphy wrote the screenplay for and directed the feature film Running with Scissors. Based on the memoir by Augusten Burroughs, the movie version starred Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin and Brian Cox and, as the young Burroughs, Joseph Cross. In 2010 Murphy directed Julia Roberts in an adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir Eat, Pray, Love. The film was a box office success but a critical failure, receiving harsh reviews criticizing its pacing and lack of credibility. To date, the film has grossed $204,482,125 worldwide.

On January 20, 2012, it was announced that the next film Murphy would be directing is a screen adaptation by Larry Kramer of his Broadway play The Normal Heart, starring Mark Ruffalo, Roberts, Baldwin, Matt Bomer and Jim Parsons.

As of 2011, Murphy has several films in development: Dirty Tricks, a political comedy; Face, a plastic surgery thriller; and Need, an erotic thriller.

Personal life

Murphy grew up in a Catholic household and continues to go to church.

He serves on the National Advisory Board of the Young Storytellers Foundation.

Murphy is openly gay and married to David Miller, a photographer. He was previously in a long-term relationship with director Bill Condon.

He once owned a house designed by renowned mid-century modern architect Carl Maston.

On December 24, 2012, Murphy and Miller welcomed their first child, a son named Logan Phineas, via surrogate.

Controversy

Ryan Murphy has had some public arguments with famous bands and their members, including Slash from Guns N' Roses, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, and Kings of Leon lead singer, Caleb Followill, and drummer, Nathan Followill. These argument have stemmed from the musicians declining Murphy when asked to have their music covered on Glee.

Recurring collaborators

This chart lists every actor who has appeared in more than one film or show directed or written by Murphy. Leslie Grossman is Murphy's most prolific collaborator, having appeared in four of his films or movies.