Jonathan Ames

Novelist, memoirist, raconteur, actor, producer, comic book writer, one-time porn film extra and sometime pugilist Jonathan Ames insists he is not identical to the eponymous character in his HBO series "Bored to Death" (2009-11), but viewers could be forgiven for confusing the two. Jason Schwartzman portrayed Ames as a somewhat nebbishy failed novelist turned private investigator, but, although they are both Jewish, live in New York, and write books, the real Jonathan Ames, for all the self-deprecating portrayals of himself he puts forth to the public, is actually an energetic and multi-talented artist. From the time he published his first novel at the precocious age of 25, through years of writing strikingly confessional columns for the New York Press, many of which were reprinted in memoir collections, to a one-man off-Broadway show, a series of acting gigs, a graphic novel collaboration and three seasons running his own show at HBO, Ames has proved himself to be anything but the ineffectual loser of the television character who shares his name.