Mark Illsley (born June 4, 1958) is a

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

best known for writing and directing the

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

'' Happy, Texas'', which starred

William H. Macy William Hall Macy Jr. (born March 13, 1950) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. He is a two-time Emmy Award and four-time Screen Actors Guild Awards, Screen Actors Guild Award winner, and has been nominated for an Acade ...

and

Steve Zahn Steven James Zahn ( ; born November 13, 1967) is an American actor. In film, Zahn is best known for his lead roles in '' That Thing You Do!'' (1996), '' Happy, Texas'' (1999), '' Joy Ride'' (2001), ''National Security'' (2003), '' A Perfect Geta ...

, and directing '' Bookies''. Illsley was raised in

Santa Rosa, California Santa Rosa (Spanish language, Spanish for "Rose of Lima, Saint Rose") is a city in and the county seat of Sonoma County, California, Sonoma County, in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay A ...

where he made films as a teen with a Super-8 camera. He graduated from the

USC School of Cinema-Television The USC School of Cinematic Arts is an academic unit of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. With a history that dates to the first years of talkies, the school descends from America's first program to confer a college degree i ...

in 1981, where he met and started working relationship with Kevin Reynolds. ''Happy, Texas'' triggered a bidding war that played out at the 1999

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

, with

Harvey Weinstein Harvey Weinstein (, ; born March 19, 1952) is an American film producer and convicted sex offender. In 1979, Weinstein and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent ...

and

Miramax Miramax, LLC, formerly known as Miramax Films, is an American independent film and television production and distribution company owned by beIN Media Group and Paramount Global. Based in Los Angeles, California, it was founded on December 19, ...

beating out other suitors, which included

Fox Searchlight Searchlight Pictures, Inc., formerly known as Fox Searchlight Pictures, is an American arthouse film production and distribution company, which since 2019 is owned by Walt Disney Studios, a division of the Disney Entertainment segment of the ...

Paramount Classics Paramount Vantage, Inc. (formerly known as Paramount Classics, Inc.) was a film production label of Paramount Pictures (which, in turn, has Paramount Global as its parent company), charged with producing, purchasing, distributing and marketing ...

and

New Line Cinema New Line Productions, Inc., Trade name, doing business as New Line Cinema, is an American film production, film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, a division of the Major film studios, ...

. He married his wife Jill Zimmerman on September 29, 2001. They divorced in 2016.Mark Illsley – Biography
/ref> He is the son of Rolf Illsley

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Illsley, Mark 1958 births American male screenwriters Living people People from Santa Rosa, California USC School of Cinematic Arts alumni Film directors from California Screenwriters from California