Jim Sheridan

Sheridan's movies most often deal with the realities of Irish working-class life and the human consequences of Northern Ireland's troubles. In Dublin, he co-founded the city's alternative theater, the Project Arts Centre, but left after a dispute concerning a gay-themed production. He moved to New York, where he briefly enrolled at NYU's film school. He served as artistic director of the Irish Arts Center, until Dublin theatre impresario Noel Pearson convinced him to make a movie based Christy Brown's grittily humorous memoir of growing up with cerebral palsy in working-class Dublin. The five-time-Oscar nominated My Left Foot (1989) won Best Supporting Actress for Brenda Fricker and Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis. Day-Lewis also starred in Sheridan's Oscar nominated In the Name of the Father (1993) and in The Boxer (1997). Other movies include The Field, (1991) which earned Richard Harris an Oscar nomination, Into the West (1992), with Gabriel Byrne, and Some Mother's Son (1996), Borstal Boy (2000), On the Edge (2000), Bloody Sunday (2001), and In America (2002). He also produced Angelica Huston's limp directorial debut movie, Agnes Browne (1999).