Biography
A 1984 graduate of Tufts University, Gary Winick quickly moved into filmmaking as a full-time vocation, placing a stronger emphasis on producing than on directing. He earned M.F.A. degrees from both the American Film Institute and the University of Texas at Austin, then jump-started his career by helming and producing low-budget, direct-to-video efforts for such houses as
Roger Corman's New World Pictures and Concrete -- including the 1998
Curfew and the 1990
Out of the Rain. These projects drew little attention, but Winick's fortunes started to shift with the 1996
Sweet Nothing -- an appropriately grueling parable about drug addiction that featured an early
Michael Imperioli and
Mira Sorvino, which netted favorable remarks from such respected critics as
Roger Ebert and Barbara Shulgasser. Winick unveiled his genre versatility by teaming up with writer/star Polly Draper (
thirtysomething) and
Gregory Hines to direct the family-themed ensemble drama
The Tic Code, starring
Gregory Hines; while the film was produced in 1998, it wasn't released until two years later.
Alongside his directing career, Winick also made impressive advances on a business end, founding an all-digital production company in 1999, InDigEnt. With the digital format substantially driving the cost of filmmaking down, Winick was able to turn out offbeat, profitable indie films right and left with a who's who of stars -- such an extensive list of films, in fact, that his resumé over the following decade reads like a laundry list of important American independent features. Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2001), Eric Bogosian: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (2001),
Pieces of April (2003), and
Starting Out in the Evening (2007), to name only a few, all bore Winick's producing credit.
As a director, Winick made a much bigger splash in the indie film world in 2002 with his drama
Tadpole, about a 15-year-old intellectual prep-school student (
Aaron Stanford) who sets out to seduce his stepmother (
Sigourney Weaver) but winds up attracting the attention of her best friend (
Bebe Neuwirth). Winick won the directing award for the film that year at the Sundance Film Festival. For his next movie, he entered the mainstream Hollywood market with
13 Going on 30 (2004), starring
Jennifer Garner and
Mark Ruffalo, about a 13-year-old who wakes up one day in a 30-year-old body after wishing she could just skip the trials of adolescence and move straight to adulthood. Winick next continued with Hollywood moviemaking, but switched to family films with the star-studded live-action adaptation
Charlotte's Web (2006) for Paramount, Nickelodeon, and Walden Media.
He then tried his hand at television work, directing a 2007 episode of the popular comedy drama
Ugly Betty and the 2008 pilot of Candace Bushnell's
Lipstick Jungle, starring
Brooke Shields. The next year witnessed Winick helming the romantic comedy
Bride Wars. With a cast featuring
Kate Hudson and
Anne Hathaway, and a script co-authored by
SNL contributor
Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael, the movie concerns best friends who enter crisis mode when they discover that they've both accidentally scheduled their weddings for the same day. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide