Adam Davidson

Adam Davidson (on left)

Adam Davidson (born August 13, 1964) is an American actor and television director from Los Angeles. Davidson has appeared in the following films, The Day Trippers, A Match Made in Heaven, Návrat ztraceného ráje (aka Return to Paradise Lost), Way Past Cool, Nature Boy and Pop Life.

Davidson has directed for several television programs which include: Community, Lost, Deadwood, Grey's Anatomy, Six Feet Under and Fringe. He is the son of acclaimed American theatre producer and director Gordon Davidson.

His debut film as a director, The Lunch Date, won the Academy Award for Best Short Subjec and the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

He is a 1991 graduate of the Columbia University School of the Arts.

Davidson has directed the first season of AMC's Fear The Walking Dead.

He is considered equally adept at comedy and drama. His short film, The Lunch Date, won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short and the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film at Cannes. The Library of Congress’ National Film Registry recently inducted The Lunch Date. The film is shot on location in New York City, including Grand Central Terminal; it has been said to be a black and white cinematic exploration of our pre-conceived notions of each other and the gray emotional areas that connect us all.

Davidson’s work also includes DirectTV’s family drama Kingdom, set against the world of mixed martial arts, episodes of Masters of Sex, the cinematic, epic series Rome, Tremé, Deadwood, True Blood, Low Winter Sun, TURN: Washington’s Spies, and the upcoming dark, gritty, complex STARZ series Flesh & Bone. Other credits include multiple episodes of Hell on Wheels, Big Love, Hung, United States of Tara, Friday Night Lights, Grey’s Anatomy, Community, Entourage, Suburgatory, About a Boy as well as episodes of Dexter, Six Feet Under and Lost. Davidson also served as producer and director on Made In Jersey, Lie to Me and Shark. He earned a DGA nomination for Law & Order, the first television episode he ever directed.

He was born in Los Angeles to the Gordon Davidson (Los Angeles Theater Group artistic director and Tony Award-winner) and entertainment publicist Judi Davidson. He played football for Palisades High and later at Kenyon College where, as an outside linebacker, he still holds multiple records for quarterback sacks. He graduated Cum Laude with Honors in History and wrote a controversial 120-page original thesis on Racism in American Popular Culture at the turn of the 20th Century.

Davidson has been drawn to film since an early age, and has worked on all sorts of productions in various capacities to learn as much as he could about the process. This eventually led him to the graduate film program at Columbia University. Columbia’s emphasis on story and character development appealed to Davidson. He also took acting classes with Stella Adler. While he did not intend to act professionally, this experience gave him an insight into performance. He has gone on to work with Tim Roth, James Woods, Holly Hunter, Bill Paxton, Ian McShane and others.

While at Columbia, Davidson produced and directed The Lunch Date, with the encouragement of his mentor and professor, Czech director Vojtech Jasny. This relationship also led to an introduction to Jasny’s compatriot, famed filmmaker Milos Forman. Davidson became Forman’s protégé and they collaborated on several projects including the feature film Hell Camp for Sony, which Davidson wrote.

Other significant and frequent collaborations have been with Joe and Anthony Russo, who brought him on board to direct eight episodes of Community from 2009-2015 among several of their other shows and an early pilot, Norman Lear (who financed his indie feature Way Past Cool), Jason Katims (for whom he has directed several series) as well as HBO, AMC and Showtime.

Davidson lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three daughters.