Leslye Headland

Leslye Headland's cycle of plays, including "Assistance" (2008) and "Bachelorette" (2012), drew critical praise for their no-holds-barred take on sex and relationships, which led to writing and directing such indie features as "Sleeping with Other People" (2015). Born in Westport, Connecticut, Headland was raised in Maryland and received her bachelor's degree from the Tisch School of the Arts in 2002, and later studied at Playwrights Horizon Theater School. In 2003, she began a four-year stint as assistant to producer Harvey Weinstein, an experience that informed her 2008 play "Assistance," about a group of young people working for a tyrannical boss. The play was the third of six plays in an intended septet, with each installment devoted to one of the Seven Deadly Sins. The series, produced by the Los Angeles-based IAMA Theatre Company, drew considerable attention for Headland's acidic dialogue and innate grasp of the inner workings of her twenty-something characters; their success led to a brief stint as a staff writer on the critically acclaimed crime series "Terriers" (FX, 2010) and her feature directorial debut on "Bachelorette" (2012), an adaptation of her 2012 play of the same name, with Kirsten Dunst and Lizzy Caplan as attendees at a bachelorette party for a maligned former classmate (Rebel Wilson). A minor theatrical hit, it was followed by a series pilot for NBC based on "Assistance," with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay attached as producers. The 2013 production, starring and co-produced by actress Krysten Ritter, was not picked up, but her script for "About Last Night," a remake of the 1986 fim based on David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," was a hit for Screen Gems in early 2014. The following year, Headland returned to feature directing with "Sleeping with Other People" (2015), a subversive romantic comedy about a pair of love and sex addicts (Jason Sudekis and Alison Brie) who attempt to forge a platonic relationship in order to revise their troubled approach to intimacy. The feature earned a moderately positive response at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival before IFC Films picked up the picture for theatrical release.