Patty Jenkins

Patricia Lea Jenkins (born July 24, 1971 ) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer.

Jenkins ended up writing to the film's subject, serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who was a street prostitute who went on a 1989–1990 murder spree of seven of her male clients, and was at the time on death row.

Wuornos was initially distrustful of Jenkins but on the night before her execution, left Jenkins all of her personal letters which convinced Jenkins that she was the only one who could direct the film.

With a budget of $1.5 million and Charlize Theron attached to the film, Monster ended up being a commercial and critical success, grossing $64.2 million and earning Theron her first and only Oscar to date for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

She received her undergraduate degree in Painting from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1993, and a master's degree in directing from the American Film Institute's AFI Conservatory in 2000.

While a student at AFI, Jenkins, an avid fan of the films of Pedro Almodóvar, made the 2001 short film Velocity Rules, that she describes as a cross between a superhero film and Almodóvar's tone about an accident-prone housewife.

Beginning in junior high school, Jenkins took interest in photography, painting and screen-printing.

At age 20, while interning at a commercial production company, she heeded a suggestion that she could receive film training if she worked on set for free.

After doing so for some months, Jenkins advanced to second assistant camera and focus puller, then spent eight years as a cameraperson.

While shooting a Michael Jackson music video, her director of photography recommended that she attend the American Film Institute to learn directing.

She later made a superhero short film that played at AFI Fest.

Patty Jenkins started her career with Just Drives (2001) as her first film as director, she would later follow it up with Velocity Rules (2001).

This film follows a housewife who finds out she is a superhero and then has to choose between a life of excitement and glamour or her husband.

The film ended up being a Recipient of the Warner Brothers Production Grant.

She has directed the feature films Monster (2003), Wonder Woman (2017), and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020).

For the film Monster, she won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature and the Franklin J. Schaffner Award of the American Film Institute (AFI).

There she met Brad Wyman, who later introduced her to producer Donald Kushner, leading to her directing her first feature film, Monster (2003).

This ended up moving her towards the film Monster (2003); at first she tried to get producer Brad Wyman to direct, but under his advice she ended up writing the script herself.

Noted film critic Roger Ebert ranked Monster 1st on his list of the best films of 2003 and later in 2009, ranked it 3rd on the list of the best films of the decade.

For this film, Jenkins won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature and the Franklin J. Schaffner Award of the American Film Institute (an award for outstanding graduates of the AFI Conservatory), and also was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Screenplay.

After the success of Monster, Jenkins was approached by former United States Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager to develop a film about his life.

When that project did not reach fruition, she attempted to make a Ryan Gosling movie titled I Am Superman, a film with no relation to the DC Comics character, but development ended when she became pregnant.

Jenkins spent the next decade working in television.

For the pilot episode of the series The Killing (2011), she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and the Directors Guild of America award for Best Directing in a Drama Series.

In 2011, she directed one segment in the made-for-television anthology film Five.

Jenkins received an Emmy nomination because of her work on the film.

Jenkins directed many commercials and TV shows, like episodes of Arrested Development and Entourage.

She received an Emmy nomination again, for directing AMC's The Killing pilot.

In October 2011, she was hired to direct Thor: The Dark World, the first sequel to 2011 superhero film Thor, but left the project after less than two months, due to creative differences.

In 2014, she was attached to Sweetheart, a film about a female assassin, but that film was never made.

In 2017, she occupied the seventh place for Time's Person of the Year.

Jenkins was born in Victorville, California, to William T. Jenkins, a U.S. Air Force officer and fighter pilot who earned a Silver Star in the Vietnam War, and Emily Roth, who later worked in San Francisco as an environmental scientist.

Her older sister is Elaine Roth, her younger sister is Jessica Jenkins Murphy.

She spent her early childhood moving frequently due to her father's military service.

Having lived briefly in Thailand and Germany, the family eventually settled in Lawrence, Kansas.

When she was seven years old, her father died during a NATO mock dogfight at the age of 31.

During a road trip from Kansas to San Francisco, her mother dropped Jenkins and her sister off at a movie theater, where they watched the original Superman starring Christopher Reeve.

Jenkins found the film inspiring, and the experience sparked an interest in pursuing filmmaking as a career.

She completed kindergarten through her junior year of high school while living in Lawrence.

Her mom then moved the family to Washington, D.C., where Patty completed her senior year of high school.