Matt Ross

Growing Up in a Commune Before Juilliard

Matt Ross was born in Greenwich but grew up in alternative communes in Oregon and California. That childhood without television or conventional technology shaped his vision long before the industry knew his name. He wasn't chasing the fame of neon billboards. He studied at Juilliard and honed his craft in New York theater before moving to the screen.

In 1995 he appeared in 12 Monkeys in a small role. It marked the start of a period in which he landed one supporting role after another in major studio productions. He played Luis Carruthers in American Psycho in 2000. That bathroom scene opposite Christian Bale showed his ability to create discomfort with just a few gestures.

Ross prefers to observe before acting.

That patience allowed him to work with directors such as Martin Scorsese on The Aviator in 2004. In that film he played Glenn Odekirk and learned the mechanics of big period productions. Yet his interest was always divided between acting and creating his own stories behind the camera.

The Villain We All Loved to Hate

Mass visibility came with cable television. Between 2006 and 2011 he brought Alby Grant to life in the series Big Love. He was a complex, repressed antagonist in a polygamist community in Utah. That role earned him unanimous respect for his ability to humanize characters who, on paper, were hard to like.

But the general public knows him mostly as Gavin Belson in Silicon Valley. Ross shot this HBO comedy between 2014 and 2019. His portrayal of the megalomaniacal, ridiculous CEO became a key piece of the tech satire of the past decade. Because Ross doesn't understand humor without a foundation of absolute truth.

And the gamble paid off.

His move into directing wasn't the whim of a bored actor. In 2012 he premiered 28 Hotel Rooms at the Sundance Film Festival. It's a minimalist film shot on a shoestring budget and focused entirely on two characters in hotel rooms. Ross wanted to explore intimacy without the usual trappings of commercial romance films.

Low Budgets and Awards in Cannes

Ross received international recognition as a filmmaker in 2016 with Captain Fantastic. He wrote the screenplay based on his own doubts about parenting and education in a hyperconnected world. The film won the Best Director award in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. Viggo Mortensen received an Oscar nomination thanks to this project.

The script took years to find funding.

So Ross had to balance his directing career with commissioned jobs to maintain his creative independence. In 2022, he directed several episodes of the series Gaslit about the Watergate scandal. He worked with Julia Roberts and Sean Penn under considerable logistical pressure on the film sets. For 2024, Ross continues to focus on independent projects through his own production company.

Filming Captain Fantastic in 2016 required young actors to attend a wilderness survival training camp to learn to skin animals and climb rocks without stunt doubles. Ross personally supervised every one of those physical preparation sessions. The film cost $5 million to make and grossed $15 million at the international box office.