John Sayles


John Thomas Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He is known for writing and directing the films The Brother from Another Planet, Matewan, Eight Men Out, Passion Fish, The Secret of Roan Inish, Lone Star, Men with Guns, Sunshine State, and Silver City.
For Eight Men Out, Sayles was nominated for the USC Scripter Award. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for Passion Fish and Lone Star. At the 56th Golden Globe Awards, Men with Guns was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. His directorial debut Return of the Secaucus 7, as well as Matewan, were added to the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1997 and 2023, respectively.
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Early life

Sayles was born on September 28, 1950, in Schenectady, New York, the son of Mary, a teacher, and Donald John Sayles, a school administrator. Both of Sayles's parents were Catholic and of half-Irish descent. Sayles has referred to himself as a "Catholic atheist". He attended Williams College with frequent collaborators Gordon Clapp and David Strathairn, as well as his longtime partner, Maggie Renzi. Sayles earned a B.A. in psychology in 1972.

Career

After college, Sayles moved to Boston where he held a series of blue-collar jobs. In summer of 1974 he acted and directed at the Eastern Slope Playhouse in North Conway, New Hampshire. In 1975 he worked with The Atlantic Monthly on expanding a 50-page story he had submitted. This effort culminated in his first novel, The Pride of the Bimbos, published in 1975.
Like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, James Cameron and Jonathan Demme, Sayles began his film career working for independent, low-budget producer Roger Corman. Sayles was discovered by Frances Doel, script supervisor for Corman's New World Pictures. She hired Sayles to rewrite a Jaws knockoff that was in development; it would turn into the film Piranha. He soon showed an ability to rapidly create scripts that met Corman's standards. Sayles was later called "the greatest screenwriter to ever work at New World."

Directorial debut

In 1979, Sayles used $30,000 he earned writing scripts for Corman to fund his first film, Return of the Secaucus 7. To make the film on a limited budget, he shot it in 16 mm; he set the story over a three-day weekend to limit costume changes, and wrote about people his age so that he could cast his actor friends from the Eastern Slope Playhouse; he chose as the primary setting a large nearby house to avoid travel expenses or the need for permits for different locations. The film received near-unanimous critical acclaim at the time and has maintained its reputation. In 1997, the National Film Preservation Board announced that Return of the Secaucus 7 would be one of 25 films selected that year for preservation in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.

Filmmaking and writing

In 1983, after the films Baby It's You and Lianna, Sayles received a MacArthur Fellowship. He put the money into the science fiction feature The Brother from Another Planet, a film about a three-toed humanoid who escapes bondage on another world and crash-lands in New York harbor; because he is Africanoid in appearance, he finds himself at home among the people of Harlem, being pursued by European-looking alien enslaver men in black.
In 1989, Sayles created and wrote the pilot episode for the short-lived television show Shannon's Deal about a down-and-out Philadelphia lawyer played by Jamey Sheridan. Sayles received a 1990 Edgar Award for his teleplay for the pilot. The show ran for 16 episodes before being cancelled in 1991.
Sayles has funded most of his films by writing genre scripts, such as Piranha, Alligator, The Howling, and The Challenge. Having collaborated with Joe Dante on Piranha and The Howling, Sayles acted in Dante's movie, Matinee. Sayles has earned much of his funding by working as a script doctor; he did rewrites for Apollo 13 and Mimic.
Sayles' genre script, called Night Skies, inspired what would eventually become the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. That film's director, Steven Spielberg, later commissioned Sayles to write a script for the fourth Jurassic Park film.
He has written and directed his own films, including Lone Star, Passion Fish, Eight Men Out, The Secret of Roan Inish, and Matewan. He serves on the advisory board for the Austin Film Society. Maggie Renzi has been John Sayles's long-time companion, but they have not married. Renzi has produced most of his films since Lianna. They met as students at Williams College.
Sayles works with a regular repertory of actors, most notably Chris Cooper, David Strathairn, and Gordon Clapp, each of whom has appeared in at least four of his films.
In early 2003, Sayles signed the Not In Our Name "Statement of Conscience" which opposed the invasion of Iraq.
In 2009, Sayles was hired to write a proposed HBO series based on the early life of Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In May 2010, Sayles submitted a pilot episode, but the following year it was announced that HBO was no longer interested in the series and that FX picked up the rights. By that point, Sayles had dropped out of the project.
In February 2010, he began shooting his 17th feature film, the historical war drama Amigo, in the Philippines. The film is a fictional account of events during the Philippine–American War, with a cast that includes Joel Torre, Chris Cooper, and Garret Dillahunt.
Sayles' novel A Moment in the Sun, set during the same period as Amigo, in the Philippines, Cuba, and the U.S., was released in 2011 by McSweeney's. It recounts the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, the only coup d'état in U.S. history in which a duly elected government was overthrown.
Sayles' last directorial effort was Go for Sisters. In subsequent years, he struggled to raise enough money to make a film with professional actors. He continued to publish fiction. He said in a 2025 interview that he had converted two of his contemplated film projects into novels.

Filmography

Film

Executive producer

Little Saints Girlfight My Mexican Shivah Talents

Novels

  • Pride of the Bimbos. Little, Brown.
  • Union Dues. Little, Brown.
  • Los Gusanos. HarperCollins Publishers.
  • A Moment in the Sun. McSweeney's Books.
  • Yellow Earth. Haymarket Books.
  • Jamie MacGillivray: The Renegade's Journey. Melville House.
  • To Save the Man. Melville House.
  • Crucible. Melville House.

Short story collections

  • The Anarchists' Convention. Little, Brown.
  • Dillinger in Hollywood. Nation Books.

Screenplays

  • Men with Guns & Lone Star. Faber & Faber.
  • Silver City and Other Screenplays. Nation Books.

Non-fiction

  • Thinking in Pictures: The Making of the Movie "Matewan". Houghton Mifflin.
  • Sayles on Sayles. Faber & Faber. Edited by Gavin Smith.
  • John Sayles: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi. Edited by Diane Carson.
  • Sayles Talk: New Perspectives on Independent Filmmaker John Sayles. Wayne State University Press. Edited by Diane Carson and Heidi Kenaga.
  • Backstory 5: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1990s. University of California Press. Edited by Patrick McGilligan.

Music videos

Awards/nominations

Films

Awards for Return of the Secaucus 7:
Awards for Matewan:
Awards for Shannon's Deal:
  • Best Television Feature or Miniseries – 1990 Edgar Award
Awards for City of Hope:
Awards for Passion Fish:
Awards for The Secret of Roan Inish:
Awards for Lone Star:
Awards for Men with Guns/Hombres armados:
Awards for Limbo:
Awards for Sunshine State:
  • Golden Orange Award – John Sayles – 2002 Florida Film Critics Circle Awards
  • Special Mention For Excellence In Filmmaking – 2002 National Board of Review
Award for Silver City:
  • Golden Seashell Award for Best Film – John Sayles – 2004 San Sebastián International Film Festival
Awards for Honeydripper:

Other recognition

Sayles's first published story, "I-80 Nebraska", won an O. Henry Award; his novel, Union Dues, was nominated for a National Book Award as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award.
In 1983, Sayles received the John D. MacArthur Award, given to 20 Americans in diverse fields each year for their innovative work. He has also been the recipient of the Eugene V. Debs Award, the John Steinbeck Award and the John Cassavetes Award. He was honored with the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Writers Guild of America.
In June 2014, Sayles donated his non-film archive to the University of Michigan. It will be accessible at the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library. Sayles's film archive is held by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

Recurring collaborators

Actors who have regularly worked with Sayles include Maggie Renzi, David Strathairn, Joe Morton, Chris Cooper, Mary McDonnell, Vincent Spano, Kevin Tighe, Josh Mostel, Tom Wright, Gordon Clapp and Angela Bassett.