Kurt Sutter

A former playwright who dabbled in acting, television writer and executive producer Kurt Sutter cut his teeth writing for seven seasons on the gritty cop drama, "The Shield" (FX, 2002-08). Over the course of the show, Sutter was responsible for some of the most hilariously depraved episodes - often involving hyper-violent criminals or strange sexual fetishes - that helped propel the series away from being just another cop show. Instead, "The Shield" was a highly complex morality tale about the slow steady fall of a cop who runs afoul of the law in the name of some higher good. Sutter adopted the lessons learned from his first television series and used them when it came time to create his own show, "Sons of Anarchy" (FX, 2008-14), a not-so-subtle take on William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" about a criminal enterprise masquerading as a motorcycle club. Though he delved into writing features - he sold his first-ever script, "Delivering Gen" and wrote drafts for "The Punisher: War Zone" (2008) - Sutter was most at home on the small screen, where he was allowed to channel his darkly wicked sense of humor into more complex and troubled characters.