Chris Terrio (born December 31, 1976) is an American screenwriter and film director. He is best known for writing the screenplay for the 2012 film '' Argo'', for which he won the

Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay The Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay Film adaptation, adapted from previously established material. The most frequently adapted media are novels, but other adapted narrative formats include st ...

. Terrio also won the

Writers Guild Award The Writers Guild of America Awards is an award for film, television, and radio writing including both fiction and non-fiction categories given by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America West since 1949. Eligibility T ...

for Best Adapted Screenplay of 2012 and was nominated for

Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay The Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay – Motion Picture is a Golden Globe Award given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Winners and nominees 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s See also * Aca ...

, a BAFTA, and the 2013

Los Angeles Film Critics The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) is an American film critic organization founded in 1975. Background Its membership comprises film critics from Los Angeles-based print and electronic media. In December of each year, the organiza ...

Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for this work. Terrio wrote the screenplay for '' Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice'', the follow-up to

Zack Snyder Zachary Edward Snyder (born March 1, 1966) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and cinematographer. He made his feature film debut in 2004 with '' Dawn of the Dead'', a remake of the 1978 horror film of the same name. Since t ...

's '' Man of Steel'', based on an earlier draft by David S. Goyer, and is credited as co-writer for the 2017 film ''

Justice League The Justice League (also known as The Justice League of America) are a team of superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The team first appeared in ''The Brave and the Bold'' #28 (March 1960). The team was conceived b ...

'', alongside Joss Whedon for the theatrical cut and

and Will Beall for the 2021 director's cut for Warner Bros. He completed another screenplay, ''A Foreigner'', based on an article by the journalist

David Grann David Elliot Grann (born March 10, 1967) is an American journalist, a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, and a best-selling author. His first book, '' The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon,'' was published by D ...

. Terrio also co-wrote the script for '' Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'' with director

J. J. Abrams Jeffrey Jacob Abrams (born June 27, 1966) is an American filmmaker and composer. He is best known for his works in the genres of action, drama, and science fiction. Abrams wrote and produced such films as '' Regarding Henry'' (1991), '' F ...

Early life and education

Terrio was raised in a Catholic family in Staten Island, and graduated from St. Joseph by the Sea High School. He is of

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

, and Acadian descent. He graduated in 1997 from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, where he studied English literature and German phenomenology, lived in Adams House, and participated in the

Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club The Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC), founded in 1908, is an umbrella theater student organization at Harvard College with the purpose of assisting all theatrical projects at the college. It is mainly concerned with productions at the Loeb ...

and the

Hasty Pudding Theatricals The Hasty Pudding Theatricals, known informally simply as The Pudding, is a theatrical student society at Harvard University, known for its burlesque crossdressing musicals. The Hasty Pudding is the oldest theatrical organization in the United S ...

. Terrio attended

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

for his

MLitt The Master of Letters degree (MLitt or LittM; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. Ireland Trinity College Dublin and Maynooth University offer MLitt degrees. Trinity has offered them the longest, owing largely to its tradition as Ireland ...

, but eventually decided to enroll in film school. He received his master's degree from the

USC School of Cinematic Arts The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) houses seven academic divisions: Film & Television Production; Cinema & Media Studies; John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts; John Wells Division of Writing for Sc ...

in 2002.

Career

Directing

At age 26, Terrio directed the feature film '' Heights'' (Sony Pictures Classics, 2005), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It follows a pivotal twenty-four hours in the interconnected lives of five New Yorkers. It stars

Glenn Close Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress. Throughout her career spanning over four decades, Close has garnered numerous accolades, including two Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards ...

Elizabeth Banks Elizabeth Banks (born Elizabeth Irene Mitchell; February 10, 1974) is an American actress and filmmaker. She is known for playing Effie Trinket in ''The Hunger Games'' film series (2012–2015) and Gail Abernathy-McKadden in the ''Pitch Perf ...

James Marsden James Paul Marsden (born September 18, 1973) is an American actor, singer, and former model. Marsden began his acting career guest starring in the television shows '' Saved by the Bell: The New Class'' (1993), '' Touched by an Angel'' (1995), ' ...

and

Jesse Bradford Jesse Bradford (born May 28, 1979) is an American actor. He began his career as a child actor at the age of five and received two Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actor in a Feature Film nominations for his performances in ''King of the ...

, and features

Isabella Rossellini Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (born 18 June 1952) is an Italian-American actress, author, philanthropist, and model. The daughter of the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and the Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted ...

, George Segal and

Rufus Wainwright Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright (born July 22, 1973) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and composer. He has recorded 10 studio albums and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written two classical operas and set ...

in small roles. It was one of the final films produced by

Ismail Merchant Ismail Merchant (born Ismail Noor Muhammad Abdul Rahman (25 December 1936 – 25 May 2005)) was an Indian film producer, director and screenwriter. He worked for many years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included Direct ...

and

Richard Hawley Richard Willis Hawley (born 17 January 1967) is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. After his first band Treebound Story (formed while he was still at school) broke up, Hawley found success as a member of Britpop band Longp ...

. The film won a "Best Independent Feature Film Casting" award from the Casting Society of America, USA in 2005. In 2010, he directed the episode "I Look Like Frankenstein", which was Episode 8 in Season 3 of ''

Damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...

'' on FX. In 2002, he directed, wrote and produced a short film entitled ''Book of Kings'', which starred

Aasif Mandvi Aasif Hakim Mandviwala (born March 5, 1966), known professionally as Aasif Mandvi (, ), is a British-American actor, comedian and author. He was a correspondent on ''The Daily Show'' from 2006 to 2017. Mandvi's other television work includes the ...

among others. It premiered at the first annual

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was f ...

in 2002.

Screenwriting

Terrio wrote the script for '' Argo'', winning the

for the screenplay, and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His screenplay was also nominated for Best Screenplay awards from the

Golden Globes The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of ...

and the BAFTA Awards. For the ''Argo'' screenplay, he also won Best Screenplay or Best Adapted Screenplay honors from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, the

Online Film Critics Society Awards The Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) is an international professional association of online film journalists, historians and scholars who publish their work on the World Wide Web. The organization was founded in January 1997 by Harvey S. Karten ...

, the

Austin Film Critics Association The Austin Film Critics Association (AFCA) is an organization of professional film critics from Austin, Texas. Each year, the AFCA votes on their end-of-year awards for films released in the same calendar year. A special award, the Austin Film ...

, the Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards, the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards, the Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards, the 2013

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

(USC) Scripter Award, and the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards. He loosely adapted the screenplay based on a ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...

'' article by Joshuah Bearman entitled "The Great Escape" and the memoir of

Tony Mendez Antonio Joseph Mendez (November 15, 1940 – January 19, 2019) was an American technical operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who specialized in support of clandestine and covert CIA operations. He wrote four memoirs ab ...

, ''The Master of Disguise'', supplementing that material with extensive research of his own. Terrio recalls the experience of writing a dialogue-intensive scene for ''Argo'':

Scene 58--nine men sitting in a conference room talking through scenarios for cover stories to get Americans out of Iran--was difficult. There's nothing to cut to except the actors' faces. The tension has to come from the subtle shifts of power. CIA and State Department officials debate ideas, each worse than the last. I knew the crucial beat would come when our hero, Tony Mendez, speaks up. He couldn't seem disrespectful, yet he had to make his case. I settled on the idea that Mendez would throw a spitball into the conversation with a joke about giving the bicycle escapees Gatorade. The table would go silent. The attention of the room would shift to the court jester. I also had to determine whether Gatorade was on the market and a commonly recognized brand in December 1979. I celebrated when I found a magazine from the year before featuring a dehydrated athlete with a
Village People Village People is an American disco group known for its on-stage costumes and suggestive lyrics in their music. The group was originally formed by French producers Jacques Morali, Henri Belolo and lead singer Victor Willis following the releas ...
moustache: 'Gatorade: When You're Thirsty to Win.'

Terrio also had previously written the screenplays for two films he directed: the feature film '' Heights'', which screened at the Sundance Film Festival, and the award-winning short film ''Book of Kings''. Terrio re-wrote David S. Goyer's script for

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

' '' Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice'' (2016), and also wrote the screenplay for the ensemble film ''

'' (2017). On January 30, 2017, it was announced that Terrio had performed a re-write on Ben Affleck's script for an untitled Batman movie, which Affleck co-wrote with DCEU co-runner and producer

Geoff Johns Geoffrey Johns (born January 25, 1973) is an American comic book writer, screenwriter, and film and television producer. Johns's work on the DC Comics characters Green Lantern, Aquaman, Flash and Superman, has drawn critical acclaim. He serv ...

. Terrio has also been hired by Paramount Pictures and Indian Paintbrush to write the script for the drama ''A Murder Foretold'', based on an article in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' by

related to a number of high-profile murders in Guatemala. Terrio hopes to direct his own screenplay. Terrio has completed the adaptation of Harlan Coben's novel '' Tell No One'' for Warner Bros., with

Ben Affleck Benjamin Géza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is an American actor and filmmaker. His accolades include two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and a Volpi Cup. Affleck began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS education ...

being attached to direct.

Guillaume Canet Guillaume Canet (; born 10 April 1973) is a French actor, film director and screenwriter, and show jumper. Canet began his career in theatre and television before moving to film. He starred in several films like '' Joyeux Noël'', '' Love Me I ...

has already directed a French film in an independent adaptation of this novel. In addition, Terrio wrote a screenplay for a film adaptation of '' Richard II'', which director

James Ivory James Francis Ivory (born June 7, 1928) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. For many years, he worked extensively with Indian-born film producer Ismail Merchant, his domestic as well as professional partner, and with scree ...

intends to film in 3D. On September 12, 2017 it was announced that Terrio would be co-writing the script for '' Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'' with director

. The film was released on December 20, 2019. On May 20, 2020 it was announced that ''

Zack Snyder's Justice League ''Zack Snyder's Justice League'' (colloquially referred to as the Snyder Cut) is the 2021 director's cut of the 2017 American superhero film ''Justice League'', the fifth film set within the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) based on the team of ...

'' will be released on

HBO Max HBO Max is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in the United States on May 27, 2020, the service is built around the libraries of HBO, Warner Bros., Cartoon Netw ...

in 2021. Terrio is credited with the screenplay and story.

Other work

Terrio has also edited the documentary short ''First Out''. He worked on the Ivory–Merchant films (directed by

) '' Le Divorce'' and ''

The Golden Bowl ''The Golden Bowl'' is a 1904 novel by Henry James. Set in England, this complex, intense study of marriage and adultery completes what some critics have called the "major phase" of James's career. ''The Golden Bowl'' explores the tangle of int ...

''. He was also previously an assistant to Ivory. Terrio also served as an assistant director on the short film ''Equation'', directed by Anuj Majumdar, and was also a grip on the short film ''Awake'', directed by Lori Lovoy-Goran. She won a DGA Student Film Award and a SXSW Competition Award for her documentary short film ''In Between Days''.

Filmography

Other credits

References

External links

*
A Biography of Chris Terrio and an Analysis of His Writing Techniques

Accessed July 3, 2006.

Accessed July 3, 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Terrio, Chris 1976 births Alumni of the University of Cambridge American male screenwriters Living people Writers from New York City People from Staten Island USC School of Cinematic Arts alumni Writers Guild of America Award winners Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners American people of Irish descent American writers of Italian descent American television directors Hasty Pudding alumni Film directors from New York City Catholics from New York (state) Screenwriters from New York (state) American film directors of Italian descent