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Phyllis Nagy

Head of Screenwriting; Professor

“PhyllisPhyllis Nagy most recently directed Call Jane, starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, which was a Competition selection at the 72nd Berlinale, as well as an official selection of the Premieres section at the Sundance Film Festival. Call Jane will be released theatrically in the United States by Roadside Attractions in October 2022.

Nagy’s screenplay for Carol, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel The Price of Salt, won the New York and Seattle Film Critics Circle awards and received Academy Award, BAFTA, Spirit Award, Gotham Award, and WGA Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, among numerous other awards and nominations.

She previously wrote and directed Mrs. Harris (HBO Films), which starred Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley. A Gala Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival, Mrs. Harris received 12 Emmy nominations, including nods for Nagy’s work as a writer and a director, won a PEN Literary Award for its script, a Gracie Allen Award for its direction, and was nominated for multiple Golden Globe and SAG Awards.

Nagy served as Writer-in-Residence at The Royal Court Theatre, London, where four of her plays premiered: Weldon Rising, Disappeared, The Strip and Never Land. Her other plays include Butterfly Kiss (Almeida Theatre, London); The Talented Mr. Ripley (Palace Theatre, Watford); The Seagull (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Scarlet Letter (Denver Center Theater, Classic Stage Company, New York and Chichester Festival Theatre); Trip’s Cinch (Actors Theater of Louisville Human Festival); and Delores (BBC Radio), a contemporary version of Euripides’s Andromache. Her plays have been translated into a dozen languages, have been performed across the globe and are published by Methuen Drama, Faber & Faber, and Samuel French.

Nagy is a member of the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where she served as a member of the Writers Branch Executive Committee; the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA); the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences; Writers Guild of America West; Directors Guild of America; and PEN American Center.