Michael Dinner | Executive Producer and Director | Justified on FX
Michael Dinner
Executive Producer / Director
Award-winning director, writer and producer Michael Dinner grew up in Denver, Colorado, where he dreamed of becoming either a pitcher for the New York Yankees, Keith Richards, or John Ford.
After a year attending college and playing music in clubs on the East Coast, he moved to Los Angeles and worked as a songwriter for MCA Music until eventually becoming a solo recording artist for Fantasy Records, where Dinner recorded his first two albums, “The Great Pretender” and “Tom Thumb the Dreamer”. Dinner then returned to college at Harvard and also attended The American Film Institute in Los Angeles.
At AFI, he began work as the director, writer and producer of his first film, Miss Lonelyhearts. The film, which starred Eric Roberts, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival and was honored with the Prix de la Jeunesse, a special jury award for directing. While working on Miss Lonelyhearts, Dinner began developing the script for Heaven Help Us (a.k.a. Catholic Boys). Heaven Help Us was his studio directorial debut.
In television, he has directed pilots and long-form and has been the executive producer/director of The Wonder Years, Chicago Hope, Early Edition, Karen Sisco and Kidnapped. Dinner was a director of the critically-acclaimed pilots for The Street, Fantasy Island, Karen Sisco, Kidnapped, Bionic Woman and Sons of Anarchy, and was a director of the film The Crew.
Dinner directed the pilot for Justified and is currently executive producer / director of the series as well as Showtime’s new drama, Masters Of Sex.
Dinner resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Ann, their sons Nicholas Liam and Matthew Finn, and their genius dog, Bonnie Labowowowski.