Two-time Emmy® Award winner Paris Barclay, one of television's most successful and honored directors, is the President of the Directors Guild of America.
Throughout his illustrious career in TV, he has directed nearly 150 episodes of television, including NYPD Blue, ER, The West Wing, Lost, CSI, NCIS: Los Angeles, House, Glee, Smash, The Good Wife, and most recently the new series Extant and Manhattan.
For Four seasons, from 2011 to 2014, Barclay served as the executive producer and principal director of FX's Sons of Anarchy, which has completed its record breaking final season as one of FX's highest rated shows in its history. He is currently in production for his next collaboration with FX and writer/creator Kurt Sutter, The Bastard Executioner.
He has won two Emmys for his direction of NYPD Blue and has received six additional Emmy nominations for producing and directing, three of which are for directing Glee episodes "Wheels," "Diva," and "100." He has also garnered ten Directors Guild nominations, for shows as diverse as NYPD Blue, ER, The West Wing, House, Weeds, In Treatment and Glee. He became the first director in the history of the Guild to receive a comedy and drama nomination in the same year, two years in a row (2008 and 2009). He's also received three NAACP Image Awards, for producing, writing and directing City of Angels, directing Cold Case, and this past year for directing Smash. He has been nominated for the Image Award for Directing every year it has been offered, from 2006 to 2014. In 2014, he was inducted into the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame.
As a writer, Barclay collaborated with the then-unknown Dustin Lance Black to create Pedro, the MTV telefilm telling the story of The Real World's Pedro Zamora. They received WGA and the Humanitas Prize nominations for their work. Paris has also written the plot Hate for Showtime (with James De Monaco) and individually wrote the pilot ID for CBS and Kelsey Grammer's Grammnet Productions. He has composed and written 16 musical plays, including One Red Flower (based on the book Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam) which has been performed all over the country. He's received honors sucha s four prestigious Peabody Awards, two Humanitas Prizes (as a producer and director), and countless other recognitions.
Barclay has directed three films: the feature Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood for Miramax, and television films The Cherokee Kid for HBO and The Big Time for TNT.
Barclay got his start in advertising workin as a creative executive and then segued into directing music videos for some of music's biggest stars, such as: Janet Jackson, Bob Dylan, and LL Cool J. In addition to his service to the DGA, Paris has been recognized for his service and contributions to many charitable organizations, including Liberty Hill, GLAAD, the Pan African Film Festival, Project Angel Food and The Human Rights Campaign. He and Taylor Hackford shared the 2007 Robert Aldrich Award, given for extraordinary service to the Directors' Guild of America, and this year was named as one of Ebony Magazine's "Power 100."
