Ken Kwapis

KEN KWAPIS is an award-winning director who has moved easily between the worlds of feature filmmaking and television directing.

Big Miracle is Kwapis’ 10th feature film. His prior film was He’s Just Not That Into You, adapted from Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo’s nonfiction best seller. The movie’s all-star ensemble included Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson and Justin Long.

Kwapis’ other features include the critically acclaimed The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, based on Ann Brashares’ best-selling young adult novel and starring Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera and Blake Lively; License to Wed, starring Robin Williams, John Krasinski and Mandy Moore; The Beautician and the Beast, starring Fran Drescher and Timothy Dalton; Dunston Checks In, starring Faye Dunaway and Jason Alexander; He Said,She Said, co- directed by Marisa Silver and starring Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins; and Vibes, starring Cyndi Lauper, Jeff Goldblum and Peter Falk. He made his feature directing debut in 1985 with Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird, starring Jim Henson’s Muppets.

Kwapis wrote and directed Sexual Life, loosely based on Arthur Schnitzler’s play La Ronde and starring Elizabeth Banks, Kerry Washington and Anne Heche. Sexual Life premiered at the 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival.

For television, Kwapis helped launch seven series, including NBC’s Emmy Award-winning The Office. Kwapis received an Emmy nomination for the show’s third season premiere, "Gay Witch Hunt." He also directed the 100 th episode of the series, "Company Picnic. "

Kwapis was executive producer/director of the NBC comedy Outsourced, adapted from the 2006 feature film. Outsourced was developed through Kwapis’ production company In Cahoots. He also directed the pilots for such critically acclaimed series as HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show and FOX’s The Bernie Mac Show. He received an Emmy nomination in 2001 for his work as a producer/director on FOX’s Malcolm in the Middle.

Kwapis studied filmmaking at Northwestern University and the University of Southern California. He won the Student Academy Award® in Dramatic Achievement in 1982 for his USC thesis film For Heaven’s Sake, a contemporary adaptation of Mozart’s one-act opera "Der Schauspieldirektor" ("The Impresario”).

(c) 2012 Universal Pictures