Credits

DIRECTORS/WRITERS/PRODUCERS  Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
CASTING DIRECTORS  Ellen Chenoweth, Rachel Tenner
ENSEMBLE CAST  Richard Kind, Sari Lennick, Jessica McManus, Fred Melamed, Michael Stuhlbarg, Aaron Wolff

Biography

Joel Coen

Joel Coen was honored by the Cannes International Film Festival in 2001, as Best Director for The Man Who Wasn’t There, and in 1991, as Best Director for Barton Fink. He was honored as Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review, and the BAFTA Awards for 1996’s Fargo; and also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Fargo, which he co-wrote with his brother Ethan. The screenplay for O Brother, Where Art Thou?,also co-written with Ethan, was nominated for a BAFTA Award and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Other films that he has directed and co-written are Intolerable Cruelty; The Big Lebowski; The Hudsucker Proxy; Miller’s Crossing; Raising Arizona; and Blood Simple. He co-directed and co-wrote the 2004 comedy The Ladykillers with Ethan. Joel & Ethan Coen’s 2007 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men brought them the Directors Guild of America, BAFTA, and Academy Awards; the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay; Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay from the New York Film Critics Circle; and Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay from the Oscars and the National Board of Review. The film’s cast was voted the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, and Javier Bardem won the Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor, among other accolades. Joel & Ethan Coen’s most recent film, Burn After Reading, was nominated for the BAFTA Award and the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Ethan Coen

Ethan Coen has produced and co-written such critically acclaimed films as Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, which won the Palme d’Or [Best Picture], Best Director, and Best Actor (John Turturro) Awards at the 1991 Cannes International Film Festival; and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which was nominated for two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards (winning one). One of 1996’s most honored films, Fargo, which he produced and co-wrote, received seven Academy Award nominations and won two, including Best Original Screenplay for Ethan and his brother Joel. Among the other films that he has co-written and produced are Blood Simple; Raising Arizona; The Hudsucker Proxy; The Big Lebowski; The Man Who Wasn’t There;and Intolerable Cruelty. He co-directed and co-wrote the 2004 comedy The Ladykillers with Joel. Joel & Ethan Coen’s 2007 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men brought themthe Directors Guild of America, BAFTA, and Academy and Awards; the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay; Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay from the New York Film Critics Circle; Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay from the Oscars and the National Board of Review; The film’s cast was voted the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, and Javier Bardem won the Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor, among other accolades. Joel & Ethan Coen’s most recent film, Burn After Reading, was nominated for the BAFTA Award and the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay. Almost an Evening,comprising three short plays by Ethan Coen, was staged in 2008 off-Broadway by Neil Pepe at the Atlantic Theater Company’s Stage 2 and then at the Bleecker Street Theater; in 2009, the same director and company staged his three new short plays under the title Offices.

Michael Stuhlbarg

In 2005, Michael Stuhlbarg was a Tony Award nominee and a Drama Desk Award winner for his performance in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, staged by John Crowley. He has also been honored with the New Dramatists Charles Bowden Actor Award and the Elliot Norton Boston Theatre Award, the latter for his performance in Long Day’s Journey into Night.

Mr. Stuhlbarg received his BFA from The Juilliard School. He also studied at UCLA; at the Vilnius Conservatory in Lithuania’s Chekhov Studies unit; at the British-American Drama Academy at Baliol and Keble Colleges in Oxford; and, on a full scholarship, with Marcel Marceau.

Richard Kind

Richard Kind is a familiar face (and voice) to audiences through his screen, television, and stage appearances.

Mr. Kind’s many feature films include Thomas McCarthy’s award-winning The Visitor and The Station Agent; Billy Crystal’s Mr. Saturday Night; Roland Emmerich’s Stargate; Scott Silver’s johns; Gary Rosen’s Hacks; George Clooney’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind; Susan Stroman’s The Producers; Christopher Guest’s For Your Consideration; and, in voiceover, Phil Roman’s Tom and Jerry: The Movie (speaking for the famous cat), John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton’s A Bug’s Life, and John Lasseter and Joe Ranft’s Cars.

Fred Melamed

Fred Melamed’s acting career has encompassed everything from leading roles to character turns to an extensive catalog of voice work.

Among his feature films are Peter Yates’ Suspect; Leonard Nimoy’s The Good Mother; Marshall Brickman’s Lovesick and The Manhattan Project; and a long list of Woody Allen titles, including Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, Another Woman, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Shadows and Fog, Husbands and Wives, and Hollywood Ending. Mr. Melamed earned his BA from Hampshire College; and his MFA from the Yale School of Drama, which he attended with frequent Coen Brothers collaborators Frances McDormand, John Turturro, and Katherine Borowitz (who also appears in A Serious Man). At Yale, he starred in productions of God’s Smoke, Doctor Faustus, and Benten Kozo, among others. He has since acted with Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theatre Company and the Kennedy Center’s Shakespeare & Company; and appeared on Broadway in Amadeus, directed by Sir Peter Hall.

Sari Lennick

Sari Lennick was born and raised in Miami, and currently lives in Minneapolis. She earned her BA in theatre and philosophy from the University of Southern California, where she received the Eileen Stanley Award for Outstanding Talent and the Ruth & Albert McKinley Award for Outstanding Performance.

Ms. Lennick earned an MFA in Acting from the Actors Studio at The New School in New York City, where she received the Bob Hope Fellowship for Excellence in Comedy. Her N.Y. stage credits included her solo show I’m Not Sorry (at the West Bank Theatre) and Fat Men in Skirts (at the Westbeth Theatre).

Aaron Wolff

Aaron Wolff was born in Minneapolis in 1994. A Serious Man is his first film.

From 2000 to 2005, Mr. Wolff lived in London, where he attended University College School and the Royal Academy of Music. A gifted cellist, he was heard earlier this year on From the Top, a nationally broadcast radio show which showcases America’s most talented young musicians. He is now studying cello and piano at the New England Conservatory, and also plays guitar. He and his brothers had a rock band called Bedrin, which is English slang for “brethren.”

Jessica McManus

Jessica McManus was born in 1991 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and raised in Minnesota. She began her acting career at age 8, performing in several local plays and dance productions.

Following her film debut in A Serious Man, Ms. McManus will continue to pursue her acting career while attending college.