Raised in beautiful Northern Jersey, Sutter spent many a summer night watching the excess burn-off from the Hess refineries ignite the summer sky; dreaming of the day when his own excess burn-off would burn brightly. His road to ignition began at Rutgers University where upon payment of $4678 in parking fines, he received his B.A. in Film. After six years of bouncing from coast-to-coast, acting, teaching and directing, Sutter was awarded an MFA Fellowship to attend Northern Illinois University. In Chicago, his exposure to the dramatic masters – Steinberg, O’Neill, Groening – inspired him and he began writing unproducible plays and cultivating ideas for the screen.
After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts, Sutter moved back to LA where he wrote his first screenplay, Delivering Gen. Gen garnered industry kudos, got him an agent and sold in 2000. In 2001, Sutter landed a writing gig on FX’s The Shield. He is currently in his fifth season as a writer and Co-Executive Producer on the Emmy® and Golden Globe® award- winning television show. Along with his work on The Shield, Sutter has a two-picture feature deal at Warner Bros. His first script, In-Crime, is a gritty drama about LAPD’s controversial SIS unit. Training Day director Antoine Fuqua and Lorenzo DiBonaventura are producing. His next feature, Species X, is a sci-fi action thriller based on the same source material as the much-anticipated X-box 360 game, “The Condemned: Criminal Origins.”
Sutter recently celebrated his first anniversary with wife, actor/singer Katey Sagal. Sutter’s thrilled, as this marriage has already lasted longer than his first. He is very grateful for all the things that keep his burn-off excessive. And on fire.
