John Cameron Mitchell

Known for ActingBorn 1963-04-21 (age 63)El Paso, Texas, USA

American writer, director, actor. Mitchell, the son of a U.S. Army general and a Scottish mother, grew up on various army bases, including Berlin; later the family lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he attended a Catholic school. Since the mid-1980s, he has worked as a theatre actor and director in New York City and played small roles in television and film productions. Among other things, he directed a play by Tennessee Williams. From 1991, he appeared in the original Broadway production of Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon's musical adaptation of The Secret Garden, which won several Tony Awards. In the early 1990s, together with musician Stephen Trask, he developed the character of Hedwig, a transgender rock musician who grew up in East Berlin, for performances in the New York drag bar Squeezebox. This led to the successful Off-Broadway musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 1998, which won two Obie Awards, and three years later to the film version of the musical, again with himself in the title role. The film premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Director's and Audience Awards, and the play won the 2001 Lambda Literary Award. At the 2002 Chlotrudis Awards, he won the prize for best leading actor. At the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) in 2001, the film was shown in the ‘PANORAMA’ section and won the Teddy Award. In 2003, he produced the film Tarnation by Jonathan Caouette, which was honoured as best documentary film by the US National Society of Film Critics, among others. In 2004, Mitchell shot the music video for the Scissor Sisters' single Filthy/Gorgeous with stars from the New York drag scene. The clip was not shown on American MTV due to its explicit sexual depictions.Read more

Movies & web series

The Hooping Life

The Sandman

AngelHeaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan & T. Rex

Nicole Kidman: Eyes Wide Open

Misplaced

Sigur Rós: Valtari Film Experiment

Yellowjackets

The Good Fight

Mozart in the Jungle

The Twilight Zone

MacGyver

Whether You Like It or Not: The Story of Hedwig

Totally Gay!

The Dreamer of Oz

GLOW

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All Time

Paying for It

A Friendship in Vienna

Law & Order

Nurse Jackie

Vinyl

Danny Says

Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer

Freddy's Nightmares

Time Warp Vol. 3: Comedy and Camp

I Remember

The Equalizer

My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea

The Roommate

Tarnation

Rabbit Hole

Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies

Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig

City on Fire

Gifted and Challenged: The Making of 'Shortbus'

Girls

Shrill

Larry Kramer In Love & Anger

The Spark: The Origins of Pride

Shortbus

How to Talk to Girls at Parties

Band of the Hand

I Am More

Party Girl

Reclaim the Flag

Seraph

David Searching