Biography

James McDonald

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Overview

Born
April 9, 1972 · Dublin, Ireland
Nickname
- Fred
Height
5′ 11″ (1.80 m)

Mini bio

James grew up in Dublin, Ireland, where his love for movies took hold early. By seven, he was already captivated by film, and by ten, he was devouring books on filmmaking. At fourteen, he shot his first short film, a four-minute piece called "Chase." He continued making movies as he got older, picking up awards and accolades and screening his work at respected festivals around the world, including the Dallas International Film Festival and the Burbank International Film Festival.

Alongside filmmaking, James is an accomplished movie critic, certified by both the Critics Choice Association, the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society. Since 2013, he's reviewed films for major and independent studios in Hollywood, and he's interviewed countless celebrities and filmmakers, helping to spotlight their latest projects.
- IMDb mini biography by: Christian Evans

Self-verified on IMDbPro

Gender / Gender identity
Male

Trademarks

Always appears in his own movies

Trivia

Won his very first award in 1990 for his five minute short, Homage to Hitch (1990). It was shot in and around his old college, the Liberties College in Dublin, opposite St. Patrick's Cathedral and was shot in Black & White and used no dialogue, only music, specifically, Bach: Air 'on the G string'.
In the Spotlight (1997) was the very first film he made after coming to America. It was based on a short film he started shooting when living back in Dublin, Ireland in 1994 he but never got to complete it.
He was the only person to be involved with both filmed versions of the highly successful Irish stage-play 'The Consequence of Polly'. The first film, Shadow Silence (1995) was made in Dublin, Ireland back in 1994 where he played the villain in the film, Detective O'Brien. When he finally moved to the States, he got the rights to the stage-play and re-made the film as Nemesis (2000). Unhappy with the adaptation of the play into Shadow Silence, he re-made it into Nemesis and the film won 3 independent film awards and was shown at several film festivals around the world.
His movie A Vicious Lie (1992) was based on a short story he wrote years earlier. In the original script, the two main characters were women where one is plotting to try and seduce the other woman's boyfriend but one of the actresses couldn't make it for filming so he quickly rewrote it so that the two main characters became guys instead. His next movie, Unseen Rival (1993) told the original story the way he had originally written it, with two female leads.
Met longtime friend Paul Brady in film school back in 1988. They both agreed that they would make a feature film before either one turned 25 and in late 1994, they completed Shadow Silence (1995), their first feature.

Quotes

What's for you won't pass you.
As a director, I love working with actors. They immerse themselves in the characters and so they are constantly asking questions about their motivation, characterizations, mannerisms. In other words, keeping me on my toes.