2. Who is Ryan Murphy?
A: Murphy grew up in Indianapolis,
Indiana, in an Irish Catholic family. He
attended Catholic school from first
through eighth grade, and graduated
from Warren Central High School in
Indianapolis. He has described his
mother J. Andy Murphy as a "beauty
queen who left it all to stay at home and
take care of her two sons." She wrote
five books and worked in
communications for over 20 years
before retiring. His father worked in the
newspaper industry as a circulation
director before he retired after 30 years.
After coming out as gay, Murphy saw his
first therapist, who found nothing wrong
3. with him other than being "too
precocious for his own good." Murphy
performed with a choir as a child, which
would later inform his work on Glee.
Murphy attended Indiana University,
Bloomington. While at college, he was a
staff member of the school newspaper,
the Indiana Daily Student, and he was a
member of the school's Singing Hoosiers
show choir.
Murphy’s Television Career:
Popular and Nip/Tuck
Murphy started his career in television in
1999 with the teen comedy series
Popular. The show aired on The WB for
two seasons. Murphy is the Golden
4. Globe Award-winning creator of
Nip/Tuck, which aired on FX and was
both a commercial and critical hit. He
produced, wrote, and directed many
episodes; in 2004, Murphy earned his
first ever Emmy nomination for
Outstanding Directing for a Drama
Series. Murphy took the show's
signature line, "Tell me what you don't
like about yourself," from a plastic
surgeon he met when he was a journalist
researching an undercover story on
plastic surgery in Beverly Hills.
Glee
One of Murphy's most successful
projects was the Fox musical comedy-
drama Glee, co-created with Brad
5. Falchuk and Ian Brennan. Fox aired a
preview episode on May 19, 2009,
following the season finale of American
Idol; the show aired its first regular
season episode on September 9, 2009.
The show's early success in its planned
13 episode run led the network to order
an additional 9 episodes for the spring,
making it the first new fall series in 2009
to get a full season order of 22 episodes.
It was announced during the last half of
the first season that Fox had ordered a
complete second and third season of
Glee due to high ratings and positive
feedback about the show and its
characters. He won his first Primetime
Emmy Award for directing the pilot
6. episode of Glee, while the show received
a record 19 nominations including
Outstanding Comedy Series, (although it
lost to Modern Family); it won in four
categories. The show was nominated for
12 Emmy Awards for its second season.
The series concluded in 2015 following
its sixth season.
Murphy was one of four executive
producers on the reality television series
The Glee Project, which premiered on
Oxygen on June 12, 2011. The show
featured a group of contestants vying for
the prize of a 7 episode arc on Glee, with
one being eliminated each week until
the winner is chosen from those
remaining in the final episode. The show
7. was renewed for a second season, which
ended up being its last.
The New Normal
Murphy and Glee co-executive producer
Ali Adler created The New Normal, a
half-hour comedy that "centers on a gay
couple and the surrogate who will carry
their child", which started airing on NBC
in the fall of 2012. The series was based
on Murphy's own experiences having a
child via surrogate, with the main
characters, Bryan and David, named for
Ryan and his husband. According to
Entertainment Weekly, there was a
bidding war in October 2011 between
ABC, NBC, and Fox for the project.The
announcement that NBC had officially
8. ordered a pilot episode for the series
was made on January 27, 2012, and a
season order followed on May 7, 2012.
However, the series was canceled after
one season.
Anthology series
Another project of Murphy's with
Falchuk, the anthology series American
Horror Story, premiered on FX on
October 5, 2011, and was nominated for
17 Emmy Awards for its debut season.
The series ended its fourth season on
January 21, 2015, and featured some of
the same cast as the first and second,
but playing different characters and in a
different setting.
9. In October 2014, it was announced that
FX had given a 10 episode straight-to-
series order for American Crime Story, a
true crime anthology series that will
serve as a companion piece to American
Horror Story. The first season, set to air
in 2015, will star Cuba Gooding, Jr.,
Sarah Paulson, David Schwimmer and
John Travolta. That same month, it was
announced that Fox had given a 15
episode straight-to-series order for
Scream Queens, a comedy-horror
anthology series created by Murphy,
Falchuk, and Brennan. The first season,
set on a college campus, will star Jamie
Lee Curtis, Emma Roberts, Lea Michele
and Abigail Breslin.
10. Murphy’s film career:
In 2006, Murphy wrote the screenplay
for and directed the feature film Running
with Scissors. Based on the memoir by
Augusten Burroughs, the movie version
starred Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin
and Brian Cox and, as the young
Burroughs, Joseph Cross. In 2010,
Murphy directed Julia Roberts in an
adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir
Eat, Pray, Love. The film was a box office
success but a critical failure, receiving
harsh reviews criticizing its pacing and
lack of credibility. To date, the film has
grossed $204,482,125 worldwide.
On January 20, 2012, it was announced
that Murphy would direct a television
11. film adaptation of Larry Kramer's
Broadway play The Normal Heart,
starring Mark Ruffalo, Roberts, Baldwin,
Matt Bomer and Jim Parsons. Murphy
then collaborated with The Normal
Heart executive producer Jason Blum to
produce the remake of the cult-classic
horror film The Town That Dreaded
Sundown. The film was the directorial
debut of Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who has
directed episodes of Glee and American
Horror Story. It was released in 2014.
As of 2011, Murphy has several films in
development: Dirty Tricks, a political
comedy; Best Actress, a biographical
drama based on the rivalry between
Bette Davis and Joan Crawford; and One
12. Hit Wonders, a musical comedy
reportedly set to star Reese
Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow,
Cameron Diaz, Beyoncé Knowles and
Andy Samberg. In 2014, Murphy was
developing a feature film of the life of
reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, based
on the number one bestselling book
Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of
Huguette Clark and the Spending of a
Great American Fortune.
Murphy’s Personal Life:
Murphy grew up in a Catholic household
and continues to go to church. He serves
on the National Advisory Board of the
Young Storytellers Foundation. He once
owned a house designed by renowned
13. mid-century modern architect Carl
Maston.
Murphy is married to David Miller, a
photographer. On December 24, 2012,
Murphy and Miller welcomed their first
child, a son named Logan Phineas, via
surrogate. In October 2014, they
welcomed a second child into their
family, called Ford. He was previously in
a long-term relationship with director
Bill Condon.
Movie Posters of Murphy’s Films:
