Amy Seimetz
Amy Seimetz | |
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Occupation | Actress, writer, producer, director, editor |
Years active | 2003–present |
Amy Lynne Seimetz is an American actress, writer, producer, director, and editor. She has appeared in series such as AMC's The Killing, HBO's Family Tree and Shane Carruth's critically acclaimed Upstream Color.[1]
Early life and education
Seimetz grew up in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, and briefly attended film school before moving to Los Angeles. There she worked as a nanny, a waitress, and a seamstress while learning filmmaking.[2]
Career
Seimetz began her film career by producing and directing short and independent films, including Medicine for Melancholy, which was nominated for Gotham and Independent Spirit Awards after playing at South By Southwest and the Toronto International Film Festival. She acted in Joe Swanberg's Alexander The Last, which premiered at SXSW. She also worked with Swanberg on Silver Bullets and Autoerotic, continuing with acting roles in Gabi on the Roof in July, Tiny Furniture,[3] Open Five, and Myth of the American Sleepover.
Seimetz's performance in A Horrible Way to Die won her the Best Actress award at Fantastic Fest. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to good reviews.[4] She appeared in The Off Hours. About her, The Los Angeles Times wrote: "Every year, the Sundance Film Festival has a semi-official 'it girl' who encapsulates the festival's cocktail of discovery and buzz. But what about someone who embodies the independent film world's sense of community and the pitch-in spirit of collaboration, something like a most valuable player? That prize might well go to Amy Seimetz."[5]
The Hollywood Reporter singled Seimetz out as one of the breakouts of Sundance that year: "As a late-night truck-stop waitress and orphaned lost soul, Seimetz invests Off Hours' dead-end world of tiny tragedies with a hidden, hard-won strength."[6] She appeared in Revenge for Jolly!. In 2012, she made her feature directorial debut with the Florida-based thriller Sun Don't Shine, which she also wrote, produced, and co-edited.[7] The film premiered at South By Southwest to rave reviews.[8] Indiewire wrote: "Her terrific directorial debut was a brilliant noir exercise with less mumbling than raw brawls. She pinned me to my Alamo Drafthouse seat and the film kept me there for the next 82 minutes."[9]
Seimetz is the star of Upstream Color and Pit Stop, both of which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. In February, she was added as a series regular to AMC's series The Killing. In season 3, she plays Danette Leeds, a "hard-living, financially strapped single mother whose 14-year-old daughter goes missing".[10]
In June 2014, Starz announced that they had ordered a 13-episode anthology series of the film The Girlfriend Experience , co-written, co-directed, and executive produced by Seimetz and Lodge Kerrigan.[11] This came after the film's creator Steven Soderbergh stated: "I think if I were going to run a studio I'd just be gathering the best filmmakers I could find and sort of let them do their thing within certain economic parameters. So I would call Shane Carruth, or Barry Jenkins or Amy Seimetz and I'd bring them in and go, OK, what do you want to do?"[12]
Filmography
As director
- The Unseen Kind-Hearted Beast (2005) (short)
- We Saw Such Things (2008) (documentary short)
- Round Town Girls (2009) (short)
- Sun Don't Shine (2012)
- The Girlfriend Experience (2016) (TV series)
As writer
- Sun Don't Shine (2012)
- The Girlfriend Experience (2016) (TV series)
As producer
- The Unseen Kind-Hearted Beast (2005) (short)
- Medicine for Melancholy (2008)
- We Saw Such Things (2008) (documentary short)
- Dish & The Spoon (2011)
- Silver Bullets (2011)
- No Matter What (2011)
- Sun Don't Shine (2012)
- The Girlfriend Experience (2016) (TV series)
As actress
- Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)
- One Night Only (2009)
- Alexander the Last (2009)
- A Horrible Way to Die (2010)
- Bitter Feast (2010)
- Myth of the American Sleepover (2010)
- Open Five (2010)
- Tiny Furniture (2010)
- Gabi on the Roof in July (2010)
- You're Next (2011)
- Autoerotic (2011)
- Small Pond (2011)
- No Matter What (2011)
- Silver Bullets (2011)
- The Dish and the Spoon (2011)
- The Off Hours (2011)
- 9 Full Moons (2012)
- The Proxy (2012)
- Be Good (2012)
- Unicorns (2012)
- Revenge for Jolly (2012)
- Sun Don't Shine (2012)
- The Killing (2013)
- Family Tree (2013)
- Lucky Them (2013)
- Upstream Color (2013)
- Pit Stop (2013)
- The Sacrament (2013)
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2013)
- The Reconstruction of William Zero (2014)
- I Believe in Unicorns (2014)
- We'll Find Something (2015)
- Ma (2015)
- Entertainment (2015)
- Lovesong (2016)
- The Girlfriend Experience (2016)
- Stranger Things (2016)
- Alien: Covenant (2017)
Awards and nominations
Year | Title | Award | Result |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | Tiny Furniture | Gotham Independent Film Awards Award for Best Ensemble Performance | Nominated |
The Myth of the American Sleepover | SXSW Film Festival Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast | WonI | |
2011 | A Horrible Way To Die | Fantastic Fest Award for Best Actress | Won |
2012 | Sun Don't Shine | SXSW Film Festival Special Jury Award - Emergent Narrative Woman Director | Won |
Gotham Independent Film Awards Award for Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You | Nominated | ||
RiverRun International Film Festival Special Jury Prize - Spark Award | WonII | ||
Indiewire Best of 2012 Best Undistributed Film | Won | ||
2013 | Upstream Color | Gotham Independent Film Awards Award for Best Actress | Nominated |
2013 | Sun Don't Shine | Gotham Independent Film Awards Award for Breakthrough Director | Nominated[13] |
Notes
^I Shared with Claire Sloma, Marlon Morton, Amanda Bauer, Brett Jacobsen, Nikita Ramsey, and Jade Ramsey
^II Shared with Brady Corbet, and David Oyelowo.
References
- ↑ "Upstream Color Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2016-09-07.
- ↑ Comments. "Amy Seimetz Breaks Through". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved 2016-09-07.
- ↑ "Amy Seimetz Digitally Premieres Sun Don't Shine Film :: Movies :: News :: Paste". Pastemagazine.com. Retrieved 2016-09-07.
- ↑ A Horrible Way to Die review, The New York Times, August 19, 2011.
- ↑ "Sundance 2011: Amy Seimetz". Latimesblogs.latimes.com. 2011-01-23 [11:45 am]. Retrieved 2016-09-07.
- ↑ Review of The Off Hours, The Hollywood Reporter
- ↑ Sun Don't Shine review at artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com, March 13, 2012.
- ↑ Time Out Chicago review of Sun Don't Shine Archived June 16, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
- ↑ Indiewire (2016-05-12). "Indiewire review of ''Sun Don't Shine''". Indiewire.com. Retrieved 2016-09-07.
- ↑ Amy Seimetz Joins The Cast of The Killing, "Indiewire"
- ↑ Starz Orders Girlfriend Experience Series From Steven Soderbergh, "Variety"
- ↑ Steven Soderbergh State of Cinema Address, "Deadline Hollywood"
- ↑ * (2013-10-19). "From the Archives: Amy Seimetz". Anthem Magazine. Retrieved 2016-09-07.