Guest
Award-winning writer and director Sam Esmail discusses the apocalyptic thriller Leave the World Behind, out globally on Netflix on December 8, 2023. Watch the trailer here: Sam Esmail is a director, screenwriter, and producer, best known for his multiple award-winning USA series Mr. Robot, starring Rami Malek. In 2015, Mr. Robot premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin and won the “Audience Award for the Best Episodic.” In 2016, the show received a Golden Globe for “Best Television Series—Drama,” A Peabody Award, a Critics Choice Television Award for “Best Drama Series,” the Television Critics Association Award for “Outstanding New Program,” and a Writers Guild of America Award for “Television: New Series.” The fourth season of “Mr. Robot” concluded the series in 2019. Following Mr. Robot, Esmail directed and executive produced the first season of an adaptation of the Gimlet media podcast, Homecoming, starring Julia Roberts, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and aired on Amazon Prime Video. Last year, Esmail executive produced the political thriller Gaslit starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn. The series launched on Starz and is a modern take on the 1970s political Watergate scandal centering on untold stories and forgotten characters of the time. The show earned four Critics Choice nominations and a Golden Globe nomination. Esmail also executive produced Angelyne, a limited series based on The Hollywood Reporter investigative feature about the life of Los Angeles’ mysterious billboard icon. The 5-episode limited series is available on Peacock. Other projects under his production company, Esmail Corp, and overall deal with Universal Content Productions include; Briarpatch (2019), The Resort (2022), The Family Chao, and Battlestar Galactica. After graduating from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Esmail attended AFI’s directing program where he received his MFA. In 2008, he wrote his first feature screenplay Sequels, Remakes & Adaptions, which landed on the Black List, a survey taken by more than 600 production companies and film financier executives about their most liked screenplays. He followed that up a year later with his second Black List script, Norm the Movie. His feature directorial debut, Comet, which he also wrote, was released through IFC in 2015 and starred Emmy Rossum and Justin Long. Moderated by Josh Lanzet.
