Dan Gilroy

The Success of the Night Camera

Dan Gilroy took twenty years to get him into the director's chair.

He was born in Santa Monica in 1959 and grew up in a house where screenwriting was part of everyday life. His father won a Pulitzer, and his brothers ended up editing or directing major Hollywood productions. But he spent two decades writing stories for others before making his definitive leap.

In 2014, he shot Nightcrawler on a budget of eight million dollars. It was his first time behind the camera as director, and the move earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The film exposes the grimier side of crime journalism in Los Angeles through a sociopathic, obsessive character.

And the gamble paid off.

Before that success, he worked on projects that few remember today. In 1992, he wrote the screenplay for Freejack, and a couple of years later he appeared in Chasers. These were studio assignments where his voice was buried under the demands of industrial production.

But in 2006, something changed with The Fall. He collaborated with Tarsem Singh on a visually lavish story that moved away from the industry's conventional structures. That script showed that Gilroy had a special interest in men who are trapped inside their own fictions.

Obsession as a creative engine

In 2012, he worked alongside his brother Tony Gilroy on the screenplay for The Bourne Legacy. It was a necessary step in learning how to handle big budgets without losing focus on the characters' psychology. Gilroy's films always come back to the same theme: individuals who operate outside common morality.

In 2017, he directed Denzel Washington in Roman J. Israel, Esq., and two years later he premiered Velvet Buzzsaw on Netflix. The latter was a satire of the art market that divided critics with its surreal tone and horror elements. The director chose to ignore the negative reactions and focus on his next screenplays.

The outside noise didn't bother him much.

During 2022 and 2023, he was in charge of writing several episodes for the series Andor. He once again worked with his family to bring political depth to the Star Wars universe through sharp, direct dialogue. His contribution focused mainly on the prison storyline on the planet Narkina 5.

Gilroy's career is defined by patient waiting until he gains total control over his work. He prefers to shoot with small crews and stay close to the streets (especially at night) to capture a reality that mainstream cinema tends to sweeten. His characters don't seek redemption but efficiency in a system that ignores them.

Filming of Nightcrawler was completed in just 28 days of night shoots across the city of Los Angeles.