Nicole Kassell facts for kids

Nicole Kassell (born in 1972) is an American filmmaker. She is known for directing movies and TV shows. Her first movie was the drama The Woodsman (2004). For this film, she was nominated for a big award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

Nicole Kassell has also directed episodes for popular TV shows like Vinyl, The Leftovers, and Watchmen. Her work on Watchmen earned her many awards. She won a Directors Guild of America Award for directing the episode "It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice". As an executive producer, she also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series for Watchmen.

Early Life and Education

Nicole Kassell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, and went to St. Anne's-Belfield School. Her father, Dr. Neal Kassell, was a medical professor at the University of Virginia. He performed brain surgery on Joe Biden in 1988, and they remained friends.

Nicole studied Art History at Columbia University. Later, she earned her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. While she was a student at NYU, she made three short films. One of these, called The Green Hour, was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002.

Filmmaking Career

Making Movies

Before her short film was shown at Sundance, Nicole Kassell won the Slamdance Screenplay Competition. She won for her first full-length movie script, The Woodsman (2004 film). This script was based on a play she had seen in New York City.

She was very excited about the play, and her passion convinced Lee Daniels to help her find money for the movie. The Woodsman was shown at major film festivals, including Sundance, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Cannes Film Festival. It was released to the public in 2004.

Nicole Kassell's second movie was A Little Bit of Heaven. This was a romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson and Gael García Bernal. It was first released in the UK in February 2011.

She has also worked on adapting a play by Arthur Miller called The Ride Down Mt. Morgan for the big screen. In February 2021, Nicole Kassell was chosen to direct a new movie based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for New Line Cinema.

Directing Television Shows

Nicole Kassell has directed many episodes for different TV series. She directed episodes for shows like Cold Case and 3 lbs on CBS. She also worked on The Closer (on TNT), The Killing (on AMC), Vinyl (on HBO), and The Americans (on FX). She is also writing a TV adaptation of a book called Bad Medicine for HBO.

In 2018, it was announced that Kassell would direct the first episode, or "pilot," for the HBO series Watchmen. In January 2020, she won a Directors Guild of America Award for her excellent directing on the Watchmen episode "It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice".

Personal Life

Nicole Kassell lives in New York City with her husband and two children. She has shared that her father is Jewish, making her half-Jewish. She mentioned that her ancestors escaped difficult times in Ukraine. This family history helped her connect with some of the themes in the Watchmen series.

Key Works and Awards

Nicole Kassell has directed several notable films and television episodes.

• Films: The Woodsman (2004), A Little Bit of Heaven (2011).
• Television: She directed episodes for many shows, including The Killing, The Americans, The Leftovers, and Watchmen.

She has received several awards for her work:

• In 2020, she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series for Watchmen.
• Also in 2020, she won a Directors Guild of America Award for her directing work on Watchmen.
• In 2002, her film The Woodsman won the Humanitas Prize and the Jury Prize at the Deauville American Film Festival. It also won an award at the Cannes Film Festival.
• In 1999, she won the DGA Student Female Filmmaker Prize for her short film Jamie.

See also

In Spanish: Nicole Kassell para niños