Lessons From a Hollywood Director with Ken Kwapis - Ep #159

Best in Fest

Ken Kwapis has been a motion picture and television director for four decades. He
directed eleven feature films, among them A Walk In The Woods, Big Miracle, He’s Just
Not That Into You, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Kwapis helped launch nine television series, including The Larry Sanders Show, The
Bernie Mac Show, and The Office. He earned an Emmy nomination for directing the
“Gay Witch Hunt” episode of The Office. He also earned an Emmy nomination for his
work as a producer-director of Malcolm In the Middle. Kwapis contributed episodes to
such shows Freaks and Geeks, Parks and Recreation, Santa Clarita Diet, and One
Mississippi. Most recently, he directed the entire second season of Space Force.
He is currently prepping the feature Thelma, based on the real-life story of the mother of John Kennedy Toole, author of A Confederacy of Dunces. Toole died before his novel
was published, and his mother Thelma spent over a decade trying to find a home for her
son’s masterpiece.
In addition to his film and television work, Kwapis is the author of the memoir But What I Really Want To Do is Direct, published by St. Martin’s Press.
Kwapis studied filmmaking at Northwestern University and the University of
Southern California. He won the Student Academy Award in Dramatic Achievement
for his USC film For Heaven’s Sake!, a contemporary