JAMES MANGOLD (director) made his feature film debut in 1996 with Heavy, a nearly wordless film about an overweight chef at a rust-belt tavern. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, winning the Grand Jury Prize for Best Direction, and was selected to represent the United States at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes.
Starring Liv Tyler, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Deborah Harry and two-time Oscar winner Shelley Winters, Heavy was described as "an acting decathlon" (Spin), "a near masterwork" (Toronto Globe), "Quietly earthshaking, eloquent and purposeful" (Janet Maslin, The New York Times) and "one of the best films of the year" (Roger Ebert).
While making Heavy, Mangold wrote Cop Land, a police drama inspired by the town in the Hudson Valley in which he grew up, one heavily populated by commuting New York City Policemen. Producer Cathy Konrad brought the script to Harvey and Bob Weinstein at Miramax who made a deal for Mangold to direct his second feature.
Starring Sylvester Stallone, Robert DeNiro, Harvey Keitel and Ray Liotta, Cop Land was accepted into the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival. Critically acclaimed, it premiered in the U.S. in August 1997 (No. 1 at the box office) and became Miramax's highest grossing opening weekend to date.
Mangold then wrote and directed the films Girl, Interrupted starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie and Kate &Leopold starring Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman with both films produced by Konrad.
Now married to Konrad, his producing partner, Mangold, the son of two celebrated painters, earned his undergraduate degree from the California Institute of the Arts (in both the acting and the film schools) and a master's degree from Columbia University.
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