Illeana Douglas
Iconic Indy Queen Illeana Douglas is a hit with critics and movie goers alike.
Douglas’ web series creation for IKEA, “Easy to Assemble” has been picked up for a second season. Born of her short film “Supermarket,” “Easy to Assemble 2” will go into production in July for a fall launch with many of the stars who were featured in season one returning.
She recently completed filming the independent drama “April Showers,” a true events-based story that takes a look inside the events of a school shooting through the eyes of a survivor.
Douglas was most recently seen starring in “Otis”, which opened at last year’s SXSW and “The Year of Getting to Know Us”, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She will next be seen in “Life is Hot in Cracktown”, a drama about how crack cocaine has become ubiquitous in inner cities. These three films capped a two-year, ten-project run for Douglas which includes titles such as “Factory Girl”, “Bondage”, “Walk the Talk”, and “Pittsburgh” with Jeff Goldblum to name a few.
She was also seen starring as Sheila on ABC’s Golden Globe winning show “Ugly Betty”.
While working as a New York film publicist, Douglas was asked to dub screams and provide additional dialogue for Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ”. This led to a long association with Scorsese, acting in “New York Stories”, “Goodfellas”, “Cape Fear” and developing and co-producing “Search and Destroy”, “The Lost Army”, and “Grace of My Heart” (London Film Critics Nominee). With Scorsese’s encouragement she also began writing and directing. Her first effort, “The Perfect Woman”, won Best Short at Aspen Shorts Fest and was a nominee for a Cable Ace Award. Another of Douglas’ projects “Everybody Just Stay Calm” was a documentary made for Bravo about the comedic trials of independent filmmaking. “Boy Crazy, Girl Crazier” and the television pilot “Confessions of a Movie Lover” were made for Bravo and IFC.
She was Executive Producer on the film “Life Without Dick” starring Sarah Jessica Parker. She premiered her short “Devil Talk” at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and later created “Supermarket”, a collection of her shorts for The Sundance Channel. “Supermarket” was nominated for a regional Emmy and later developed into “Illeanarama Supermarket of the Stars” as a pilot for the Oxygen Network.
Douglas wrote, produced, directed and starred in the pilot which can be seen on Youtube.com and co-stars Jeff Goldblum, Ed Begley Jr., Justine Bateman and Jane Lynch. It was nominated by the TV Guide Online Awards for Best Show, Best Actress and won Best Ensemble.
Douglas has starred in numerous big screen hit including “Stir of Echoes”, “Alive”, “Picture Perfect”, “Message in a Bottle”, “The Next Best Thing”, and more. She has also been in such notable television dramas as HBO’s “Lansky”, “Weapons of Mass Distraction”, and “Six Feet Under”, which earned her an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Angela. Additionally, she has been featured in recurring and guest starring roles on many of television’s biggest shows including “Law & Order: SVU”, “The Drew Carey Show”, “Frazier”, “Seinfeld”, the comedy reality series “Celebrity Garage Sale” and more including the TV movies “Rough Riders” for TNT and “Bella Mafia” for CBS. Douglas has been a frequent guest on “Politically Incorrect” to discuss politics and women’s issues.
She first came to prominence as Matt Dillon’s suspicious sister in Gus Van Sant’s “To Die For” (NY Film Critic’s Nominee) and has since been a staple on the independent film scene with memorable performances in “Ghost World”, “Happy Texas”, “Wedding Bell Blues”, “Dummy”, “Hacks”, and many more.
Douglas began her career as a stand up and sketch comedian at Stand Up New York and Manhattan Punchline so situation comedy was an easy transition. She starred as Gary Shandling’s girlfriend on the final season of The Gary Shandling Show and starred in FOX’s ahead-of-its-time comedy “Action”, with Jay Mohr.