Sean MacKenzie Bridgers (born March 15, 1968) is an American actor, screenwriter, and producer, known for his role as Johnny Burns on the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

series '' Deadwood'' and on the

SundanceTV Sundance TV (formerly known as Sundance Channel) is an American pay television channel owned by AMC Networks that launched on February 1, 1996. The channel is named after Robert Redford's character in ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' and, w ...

original series ''

Rectify ''Rectify'' is an American television drama series exploring the life of a man after he is released from prison after nearly 20 years on death row following a wrongful conviction. It was created by Ray McKinnon and is the first original series f ...

'' as Trey Willis. Additional to many roles in television and film since 1991, Bridgers received acclaim and awards for the independent film ''Paradise Falls'', which he wrote and produced. He received praise for his lead role in

Lucky McKee Edward Lucky McKee (born November 1, 1975) is an American director, writer, and actor, largely known for the 2002 cult film ''May''. He is best known for his work in horror films. Life and career McKee was born in Jenny Lind, California. He has ...

's horror film '' The Woman'' and another Moderncine film, '' Jug Face'', as well as notable roles in ''

Sweet Home Alabama "Sweet Home Alabama" is a song by American southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, released on the band's second album ''Second Helping'' (1974). It was written in response to Neil Young's 1970 song "Southern Man", which the band felt blamed the e ...

'' and ''

Nell Nell is a traditional nickname for Eleanor. Nell is the name of: People Given name * Nell (artist) (born 1975), Australian artist * Nell Blaine (1922–1996), American painter * Nell Bryden (born 1977), American singer * Nell Carter (1948–2003), ...

''. He played Old Nick in the 2015 film ''

Room In a building or large vehicle, like a ship, a room is any enclosed space within a number of walls to which entry is possible only via a door or other dividing structure that connects it to either a passage (architecture), passageway, another roo ...

''.

Personal life

Bridgers was born in 1968 in

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...

, to Ben and Sue Ellen Bridgers. Ben was the tribal attorney for the Cherokee Indian tribe and published a memoir and books of poetry. Sue Ellen Bridgers is a novelist with seven published novels. He graduated from

St. Andrew's-Sewanee School St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School is a private, coeducational, Episcopal, boarding and day college preparatory school serving 216 students in grades six through twelve. It is located in Sewanee, Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau between Nashville ...

and

Western Carolina University Western Carolina University (WCU) is a public university in Cullowhee, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina system. The fifth oldest institution of the sixteen four-year universities in the UNC system, WCU was founded t ...

. In interviews, Bridgers has mentioned that as a screenwriter he is influenced by his favorite author

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

and developed an interest in acting after seeing

Robert Duvall Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career spans more than seven decades and he is considered one of the greatest American actors of all time. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Gold ...

in ''

Tender Mercies ''Tender Mercies'' is a 1983 American drama (film and television), drama film directed by Bruce Beresford. The screenplay by Horton Foote focuses on Mac Sledge, a recovering alcoholism, alcoholic country music singer who seeks to turn his life aro ...

'' at age 14. Bridgers started watching everything by ''Tender Mercies'' screenwriter

Horton Foote Albert Horton Foote Jr. (March 14, 1916March 4, 2009) was an American playwright and screenwriter. He received Academy Awards for his screenplays for the 1962 film ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', which was adapted from the 1960 novel of the same name ...

, and Duvall and Foote became his biggest creative influences. Sean Bridgers's children are also actors. His son, Jackson, has acted in roles on '' Justified'' and '' Deadwood'', as well as his daughter, Kate, who starred in Bridgers' 2012 short, ''The Birthday Present''.

Recent productions

Acting

Bridgers has received praise for a diversity of roles in both film and television, including his role as Johnny Burns on HBO's '' Deadwood,'' and his role as the father in Lucky McKee's feature film '' The Woman''. His co-starring role in the southern-horror film, from writer/director Chad Crawford Kinkle's Slamdance award-winning screenplay, '' Jug Face'', released by the studio Moderncine, was another performance in the horror genre. Bridgers received praise for his performance from

FEARnet Fearnet was an American digital cable television network, website and video on demand service owned by Comcast. The network specialized in horror entertainment programming through a mix of acquired and original series, and feature films. Backgr ...

, ''Dread Central'', ''Birth.Movies.Death'', and ''Starburst Magazine'' critics, among others. Bridgers has also received acclaim for his role as Trey Willis on ''

'', particularly in one of the series' most notable episodes in Season 3. Reviewer Nick Hogan wrote, "this was one of the most gut-wrenching episodes of ''Rectify'' in some time. Mostly because Sean Bridgers does a masterful job portraying Trey..." Mark Walker wrote in ''

The Copenhagen Post ''The Copenhagen Post'', also stylized ''CPH Post'', is a weekly newspaper providing Danish news in English both nationally and internationally; it is the only English-language newspaper printed regularly in Denmark. History and profile Founded ...

'' that Bridgers's performance as Old Nick in ''

'' was "brilliantly restrained". Bridgers also stars in the critically acclaimed Epix show ''

Get Shorty ''Get Shorty'' is a 1990 novel by American novelist Elmore Leonard. In 1995, the novel was adapted into a film of the same name, and in 2017 it was adapted into a television series of the same name. Plot summary The story centers on Ernesto ...

''.

Writing/directing

Bridgers, along with his producing and directing partner,

Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot (born 1972, Aurora, Colorado) is a Film director, director, animator and has held a variety of roles as a Visual effects, visual effects artist in major Cinema of the United States, Hollywood films. Since 1996, Hemschoo ...

, have been developing a dark western, noted as a "Faustian western" that takes place in the South during the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

titled ''Arkansas Traveler''. Bridgers wrote the original screenplay and is a principal in the production company Travelin' Productions with Hemschoot, producing and shooting a trailer of the film featuring a cast including

Garret Dillahunt Garret Lee Dillahunt (born November 24, 1964) is an American actor. He is best known for his work in television, including the roles Burt Chance on the Fox sitcom ''Raising Hope'', for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Aw ...

and

Angela Bettis Angela Marie Bettis (born January 9, 1973) is an American actress, film producer, and director. Following her breakthrough role as Janet Webber in the drama film ''Girl, Interrupted'' (1999), she earned acclaim for her portrayals of Carrietta Wh ...

. The resulting production was also released online as a

Web series A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single i ...

of the same name in June 2017. Actor and filmmaker Ray McKinnon commented on Bridgers's screenplay:

''Arkansas Traveler'' is one of the best un-produced scripts I have read in the last decade, it's not just the complex, larger narrative of the end of the Civil War and the amazing backdrop of the protagonist's travels, but ''Arkansas Traveler'' offers the continual smaller surprises of behavior and plot – of man's inhumanity to man nd woman and child and beastand his infinite humanity. It's universal and timeless and must get made.

Bridgers and Hemschoot, under their production companies Travelin' Productions and Colorado animation studio

Worker Studio Worker Studio is an American animation and visual effects company based in Centennial, Colorado, founded in 2009 by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot. The company has provided visual effects for a number of short films including Angela Bettis, Angela Bet ...

are also developing an animated documentary about decorated

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

pilot

John H. Ross John Henry Ross (June 8, 1918 – August 9, 2013) was a decorated World War II pilot who flew 96 missions for the 22nd Reconnaissance Squadron as part of the 7th Reconnaissance Group in the 8th Air Force. Ross flew the Lockheed P-38 Lightning as ...

Filmography

Film

Television

Videogames

References

External links

*
Travelin' Productions Official Website
travelinproductions.com
Interview with Sean Bridgers
bloody-disgusting.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Bridgers, Sean 1968 births Living people Male actors from North Carolina People from Chapel Hill, North Carolina Western Carolina University alumni American male television actors American male film actors American male web series actors Web series directors Web series producers 20th-century American male actors 21st-century American male actors