Michael Nankin

Michael Nankin began his Hollywood career in the early '80s with the short film "Gravity" and has since become a sought-after television writer, director, and producer. His writing career got an early boost from the minor horror film "The Gate," starring Stephen Dorff as a young boy who accidentally opens a portal to Hell, and "Russkies," about three young Army brats who, at the height of the Cold War, stumble upon a shipwrecked Russian soldier. As Nankin transitioned to television in the '90s, he landed writing jobs on several popular series, most notably the family drama "Life Goes On" and the medical drama "Chicago Hope," also serving as a producer on both of the critically-acclaimed series. His directing career followed a similar path; after helming the cult Disney comedy "Midnight Madness," about a group of college students who stay up all night in a city-wide scavenger hunt, Nankin switched to TV and directed numerous episodes of "Life Goes On," as well as the sci-fi series "Battlestar Galactica" and "Caprica," which deal with the run up to (and consequences of) a worldwide war between humans and artifically intelligent robots known as Cylons. Nankin has also served as producer on numerous TV shows, including David E. Kelly's eccentric "Picket Fences" and "Roar," a medieval action series that starred a young Heath Ledger as a wandering Irish warrior who inspires the Celts to overthrow their Roman rulers.