Gavin O’Connor
Birthdate: Dec 24, 1963
Birthplace: Huntington, Long Island, New York, USA
Gavin O’Connor (birthname: Gavin James O’Connor) is the rare American filmmaker who has won major awards from both the Sundance and South by Southwest Film Festivals, making his feature debut as director/co-writer/co-producer of the indie drama, Comfortably Numb (1995), with Dana Ashbrook, Angela Shelton, Harry Lennix and Tovah Feldshuh, and released by Meistrich Corporation.
O’Connor was director/co-writer/executive producer of the comedy-drama, Tumbleweeds (1999), which O’Connor scripted with his then-wife Angela Shelton, who based the story on her childhood, starring Janet McTeer, Kimberly J. Brown and Jay O. Sanders, and earning O’Connor the Filmmaker Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival as well as McTeer a Best Actress Oscar nomination, going on to gross $1.3 million for Fine Line Features (on $312,000 costs).
O’Connor was the director only of his first studio movie, the successful Disney-backed Miracle (2004), about the 1980 U.S. Olympics “Miracle on Ice” hockey team, with Kurt Russell, Patricia Clarkson, and Noah Emmerich, taking in $64.5 million box office on $28 million in costs. O’Connor turned to crime drama for his next feature as director/co-writer (with Joe Carnahan) of Pride and Glory (2008), co-starring Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Emmerich, and Jennifer Ehle, and released by Warner Bros.
Gavin O’Connor was director, co-screenwriter, co-story writer, and a producer on the MMA-themed drama, Warrior (2011), co-starring Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton, with Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison, and Frank Grillo, but underperformed at the box office for distributor Lionsgate, and was then remade in an Indian-made, Hindi-language remake titled Brothers (2015). O’Connor was director of his first feature which proved a box-office disaster, the Western, Jane Got a Gun (2015), co-starring Natalie Portman (also a producer), Edgerton, Noah Emmerich and Ewan McGregor, but losing millions for The Weinstein Company ($4 million gross on $25 million costs).
O’Connor then reversed fortunes as both director and an executive producer with a big hit, Warner Bros.’ action thriller The Accountant (2016), starring Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow, and whose $155 million box office opened the door for a sequel—nine years later—The Accountant 2 (2025), again co-starring Affleck and Bernthal, released domestically by MGM/Amazon/MGM Studios and internationally by Warner Bros., after premiering at the South by Southwest Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award.
O’Connor, as director/producer, reunited with star Affleck in the Warner Bros.-backed high school basketball movie, The Way Back (2020), with Al Madrigal, Michaela Watkins, and Janina Gavankar, but it grossed only $15.5 million against $25 million costs.
Gavin O’Connor served as an executive producer on the MMA-themed documentary directed by John Hyams, The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr (2002); and as producer of directors/writers Alex and Andrew J. Smith’s high school football drama, The Slaughter Rule (2002), starring Ryan Gosling, David Morse, Clea Duvall and Kelly Lynch, and released by Cowboy Pictures.
Personal life
Gavin O’Connor was born and raised in the Long Island community of Huntington, New York, by his parents. O’Connor has one brother, Greg (film producer). O’Connor attended and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. O’Connor was married to actor Angela Shelton from 1994-1996, ending in divorce. O’Connor has been married to actor/writer/producer Brooke Burns since 2013; the couple has one child, Declan. O’Connor’s height is 6 3½ ”.
Known For
Gavin O’Connor Movies
director
Previous (4)
- 2025 |
The Accountant 2
Christian Wolff applies his brilliant mind and illegal methods to reconstruct the unsolved puzzle of a Treasury chief's murder.
- 2020 |
The Way Back
Jack Cunningham was a high school basketball phenom who walked away from the game, forfeiting his future. Years later, when he reluctantly accepts a coaching job at his alma mater, he may get one last shot at redemption.
- 2016 |
The Accountant
As a math savant uncooks the books for a new client, the Treasury Department closes in on his activities, and the body count starts to rise.
- 2016 |
Jane Got a Gun
A woman asks her ex-lover for help in order to save her outlaw husband from a gang out to kill him.
actor
Previous (16)
Facts About Gavin O’Connor
Lessons Learned: Gavin O’Connor has commented that “the thing I learned from Pride and Glory is that people like to feel a little better leaving the theater than they did coming in.”
Oscar Touch: O’Connor has directed two actors who earned Oscar nominations—Janet McTeer in Tumbleweeds and Nick Nolte in Warrior.
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