James Gray - Details

Biography

James Gray made his first film "Little Odessa" at the age of twenty-four. The film, which starred Tim Roth, Edward Furlong, Vanessa Redgrave and Maximillian Schell, received critical acclaim and was the winner of the Venice Film Festival's prestigious Silver Lion Award in 1994.

THE YARDS is Gray's second feature film. Prior to THE YARDS and "Little Odessa," Gray attended film school at the University of Southern California. It was there that his student film "Cowboys and Angels" was first seen by producer Paul Webster, who encouraged Gray to write his first feature script.

As a child growing up in Queens, New York, Gray aspired to be a painter. However, when introduced in his early teenage years to the work of various filmmakers, including Francis Ford Coppola, Gray's interests expanded to art of filmmaking. THE YARDS returned Gray to Queens where the story takes place.