Adam McKay

Adam McKay (born ) is an American film and television director, producer, screenwriter, and comedian. McKay began his career in the 1990s as a head writer for the NBC sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" for two seasons and is the co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade. He rose to prominence in the 2000s for his collaborations with comedian Will Ferrell and co-wrote his comedy films ', ', and "The Other Guys". Ferrell and McKay later co-written and co-produced numerous television series and films, and produced their comedy website Funny or Die through their company Gary Sanchez Productions.
Venturing into more dramatic territory in the 2010s, McKay's "The Big Short" was the first film he directed without Ferrell in the cast. For this, he was nominated for several awards including two Academy Awards, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay (with co-writer Charles Randolph), and two British Academy Film Awards, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. He and Randolph won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards, the BAFTA Film Awards, and the WGA Awards. For his work on the Dick Cheney biographical film "Vice", McKay received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Early life.
McKay was born in 1968 in Denver, Colorado and was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by a waitress mother, Sarah, and a musician father. When McKay was seven, his parents divorced. He attended Great Valley High School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1986. He then attended Pennsylvania State University for a year before transferring to Temple University, where he majored in English. McKay dropped out of Temple a semester-and-a-half before he was set to earn his bachelor's degree. He described it as "settling with an imaginary degree".
He is one of the founding members of the Upright Citizens Brigade improv comedy group and a former performer at Chicago's ImprovOlympic, where he was a member of the improv group, The Family, whose members included Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, Neil Flynn, Miles Stroth, and Ali Farahnakian, as well as Child's Play Touring Theatre. While a member of the mainstage cast at Second City, he wrote and performed in that company's landmark revue, "Pinata Full of Bees". In several politically charged sketches, McKay played characters like Noam Chomsky as a substitute kindergarten teacher, and a hapless personnel manager trying to inform a corporate vice president (Scott Adsit) of some disastrous IQ test results without losing his own job. The latter performance was excerpted in Second City's 40th anniversary compilation.
Career.
Writing, acting, and producing.
McKay originally auditioned for "Saturday Night Live" to be an onscreen performer, but did not make the cut. However, the scripts he submitted earned him a job as a writer from 1995, and within a year McKay became head writer at age 27, a position he held until 2001. He also directed a number of short films for the show, including the original "SNL" Digital Shorts. McKay encouraged his Second City friend Tina Fey to submit some of her scripts to "Saturday Night Live", and she later succeeded him as head writer. Though McKay was never an actual "SNL" cast member, he did make several on-camera appearances over the years and had a recurring role as an obnoxious audience member "Keith" who would often shout insults at the celebrity hosts during their opening monologue. 
Shortly after leaving "SNL", McKay teamed up with comedian Will Ferrell to form Gary Sanchez Productions and write the comedy films ' (2004), ' (2006), "Step Brothers" (2008), and "The Other Guys" (2010), all of which he also directed, produced and made cameo appearances in as an actor. Ferrell and McKay co-produce the HBO series "Eastbound & Down".
McKay was one of the writers for the film "The Campaign" (2012), and produced the film "Daddy's Home" (2015), the latter of which reunited "The Other Guys" stars Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, and was directed by Sean Anders. McKay wrote the screenplay for and directed "The Big Short" (2015), the film adaptation of Michael Lewis' book of the same name about the financial and subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2008, and the build-up of the financial and credit bubble; the film starred Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei, and Byron Mann. McKay rewrote the script for the Marvel Studios feature film "Ant-Man", directed by Peyton Reed. McKay also worked with Reed, Paul Rudd, Gabriel Ferrari & Andrew Barrer on "Ant-Man and the Wasp" to flesh out the story. He has also expressed interest in helming a Silver Surfer movie for Marvel Studios.
He produced the films "Land of the Lost" (2009), ' (2009), "The Virginity Hit" (2010), "Casa de Mi Padre" (2012), "Bachelorette" (2012), "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie" (2012), "The Campaign" (2012), ' (2013), "Tammy" (2014), "Welcome to Me" (2014), "Get Hard" (2015), "Sleeping with Other People" (2015), "Daddy's Home" (2015), and "The Boss" (2016).
In addition to "Eastbound & Down", McKay has produced the TV series "Big Lake" and "Succession", whose pilot he directed, and the miniseries "The Spoils of Babylon", and "The Chris Gethard Show".
In April 2019, McKay and Ferrell announced that they were separating as producing partners but would continue producing all projects currently in development or in production at Gary Sanchez Productions. 
In 2019, McKay launched a new production company, Hyperobject Industries, which has a first look overall TV deal with HBO and a first look feature deal at Paramount Pictures. Hyperobject Industries’ first TV project was an HBO pilot based on Jeff Pearlman's non-fiction book ‘Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s.’ McKay directed the pilot.
Directing.
McKay has directed, and co-written with Will Ferrell, the films "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" (2004), "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" (2006), "Step Brothers" (2008), "The Other Guys" (2010), and ' (2013). He has directed an "alternate film" about Ron Burgundy that is considered a companion to "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" (2004) entitled ' (2004), which is made up mostly of alternative takes, deleted scenes, and scrapped sub-plots from the original film strung together with a narrative.
McKay directed and co-wrote with Ferrell the George W. Bush Broadway show "You're Welcome America". He produced the horror-action film "".
McKay directed the TV movie documentary "Lifecasters" (2013). He has directed a number of short films, including digital shorts for "Saturday Night Live", and the short video "Good Cop, Baby Cop" for Funny or Die that stars his daughter Pearl. Among the other short films he has directed include "The Procedure" (2007) starring Will Ferrell, Willem Dafoe, and Andy Richter, "Green Team" (2008) starring Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and himself, and the K-Swiss commercial, "Kenny Powers: The K-Swiss MFCEO" (2011), starring Danny McBride as Kenny Powers from "Eastbound & Down", which he co-produces with Ferrell and has also directed an episode of.
He directed and wrote the film adaptation of the Michael Lewis non-fiction book "The Big Short", released in 2015. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work in the film, winning his first Academy Award in the latter category. In 2016, he and co-writer Charles Randolph received the USC Scripter Award for their screenplay.
In 2016, he became attached to the superhero film "Irredeemable" based on the comic of the same name by Mark Waid.
McKay will work with Jennifer Lawrence for a biographical film titled "Bad Blood" which tells the story of entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, based on the book "". It is in development and will be produced by Legendary Pictures and released by Universal Pictures. Vanessa Taylor is writing the script.
In February 2021, it was announced that McKay's next film would be a comedy, entitled "Don't Look Up," about two low level scientists trying to convince the world that a meteor is incoming. McKay wrote the script and will produce the film for Netflix. Jennifer Lawrence and Cate Blanchett are set to star.
Funny or Die.
In 2007, McKay and Ferrell launched the user-submitted comedy video site Funny or Die. A video on the site, titled "The Landlord", features both him and his young daughter, Pearl, whom Ferrell and his wife bait to say curse words. Pearl also starred in a second video titled "Good Cop, Baby Cop".
Podcasting.
From November 2015 until October 2016, McKay hosted the science/comedy podcast "Surprisingly Awesome" with Adam Davidson, produced by Gimlet Media. McKay additionally produced “Broken: Jeffrey Epstein” and “Broken: Seeking Justice,” a podcast series that explored the Jeffrey Epstein case. His next podcast project, "Death at the Wing", investigated a series of deaths among high-profile young basketball players in the 1980s and 1990s.
Personal life.
In 1999, he married Shira Piven, a film and television director. They have two daughters, Lili Rose and Pearl. His brother-in-law is actor Jeremy Piven.
McKay serves on the Creative Council of RepresentUs, a nonpartisan anti-corruption organization. He is a supporter of the Democratic Party and endorsed Bernie Sanders for President of the United States in 2016 and again in 2020. He identifies as a democratic socialist.
Filmography.
Television.
Executive producer only