Kirsten Sheridan

Kirsten Sheridan was an Irish-born writer and director who rose to prominence in 2002 after co-writing, along with her father Jim and sister Naomi, the Oscar-nominated drama, "In America." Born in Dublin, Sheridan moved with her family to New York City in the early '80s. It was there that the Sheridans endured a life of relative poverty, as her father worked tirelessly to jumpstart his career as a theater actor and director. In the late '80s, her father moved the family back to Ireland so that he could direct Daniel Day-Lewis in the biographical drama "My Left Foot" (1989). Sheridan played a small role as Lewis's sister in the film, which went on to earn two Academy Awards, including a Best Director nod for Jim Sheridan. Following in her father's footsteps, Sheridan enrolled in various film schools throughout the early 90s, before graduating with a film degree from Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dublin in 1998. Her thesis short film during college, "Patterns" (1998), also racked up several international film awards, and thus signaled the emergence of a new filmmaking talent in the Sheridan clan. Sheridan helmed her debut feature, "Disco Pigs," in 2001. The film was well-received by critics but little seen outside of her native Ireland. Then the following year Sheridan co-wrote "In America" along with her father and sister, Naomi Sheridan. The film, about the Sheridan family's early years of poverty and struggle in New York City, was an unexpected hit, and earned Kirsten Sheridan an Oscar nod for Best Screenplay. Inspired by the unprecedented success of "In America," Sheridan made two more features over the next 10 years, "August Rush" (2007) and "Dollhouse" (2010), neither of which garnered the positive attention of "In America." In 2015 it was announced that Sheridan would be adapting a popular series of Scandinavian detective novels called The Boy in the Suitcase for Amazon Studios, her first television project.