Super Size Me

Background:

Independent documentary film director Morgan Spurlock hit it big in 2004 when he wrote, produced, directed and starred in the award winning documentary "Super Size Me," which earned an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary, Features. In the film, Spurlock documented his health while eating nothing but McDonalds three times a day, every day, for 30 days.

Spurlock previously worked as a playwright before creating corporate videos and a popular online reality show called "I Bet You Will" (2000). The Internet webcast was later bought and aired on MTV in 2002.

And the success of "Super Size Me," Spurlock created the reality series "30 Days." The show has been airing on FX since June 15, 2005, and its 3rd season premiered on June 3, 2008. He recently co-wrote, produced, directed and starred in the documentary "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?" which debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

The 6' 2" filmmaker/producer, whose trade mark is his handlebar mustache, has been married to vegan chef Alexandra Jamieson since 2006 and has one son with her.

Morgan Valentine

Childhood and Family:

Born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, on November 7, 1970, Morgan Valentine Spurlock was raised in Beckley, West Virginia. An average student in high school, he was rejected by film school at USC five times before being accepted at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, from which he graduated with a film degree in 1993. He was a member of Phi Gamma Delta national fraternity (Nu Epsilon chapter - New York University).

On May 3, 2006, Spurlock married long time girlfriend, vegan chef Alexandra Jamieson (born in 1975), in Fiji. They have one son, Laken James Spurlock, who was born on December 9, 2006. Spurlock and his family currently live in New York City.

30 Days

Career:

Graduating with a film degree in 1993, Morgan Spurlock moved to Los Angeles where he performed stand-up comedy briefly and was, at one point, homeless. He also worked as a production assistant on various film projects, including Luc Besson's French action drama "Léon" (1994; starring Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, and a young Natalie Portman in her first starring role) and Barbet Schroeder's remake of the 1947 classic, “Kiss of Death” (1995; starring David Caruso, Samuel L. Jackson, and Nicolas Cage).

Spurlock got his first big break in the late 1990s when he directed the full-length play "The Phoenix" at both the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 and the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition in 2000. The play won the Audience Favorite Award at the NY International Fringe Festival.

Morgan formed a production company and began making corporate videos. During the Internet boom, Spurlock created an online reality show called "I Bet You Will" (2000), a popular Internet webcast of five-minute episodes that paid ordinary people to do disgusting, unusual, or embarrassing stunts for money. With over a million hits in the first five days, the webcast was a success and was later bought and aired by MTV in 2002, becoming the first show to go from the Web to TV. MTV canceled the show after one season, but later in 2008, reruns of the program began to air on Spike.

Meanwhile, Spurlock, who became a national spokesman at Sony Electronics for two years, helmed the corporate image piece for the Sony Corporation, "Do You Dream in Sony?" It won the Chicago Film Festival for Corporate Production and the U.S. Film and Video Festival for top Multi-Image Production.

In 2004, Spurlock struck gold when he wrote, produced, directed and starred in the award winning documentary "Super Size Me." For the film that features the ill-health effects of McDonalds food, he gained 25 pounds eating nothing but McDonald's for a month.

When asked what happened to his body while working on the film, Spurlock recalled, “My body just basically falls apart over the course of this diet. I start to get tired; I start to get headaches; my liver basically starts to fill up with fat because there’s so much fat and sugar in this food. My blood sugar skyrockets, my cholesterol goes up off the charts, my blood pressure becomes completely unmanageable. The doctors were like 'You have to stop.'”

"Super Size Me" received rave reviews and earned Spurlock an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary, Features, and a Grand Jury Prize nomination at the Sundance Film Festival. He also took home Writers Guild of America (WGA)'s Documentary Screenplay Award, Sundance Film Festival's Directing Award--Documentary, Edinburgh International Film Festival's New Director's Award, and Full Frame Documentary Film Festival's MTV News:Docs:Prize.

Commenting on the similarities between “Super Size Me” and Eric Schlosser's book “Fast Food Nation” and if he had read the book, Spurlock explained, “'Fast Food Nation' is a tremendous book and was definitely something that we referenced while we were making the film. Eric Schlosser and I were emailing one another back and forth but never really connected, and that was not really an influence on my doing the film. I read 'Fast Food Nation' when it first came out two years ago and it’s a great book.”

Following his breakthrough project, Spurlock published first book, “Don’t Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America” (2005), a companion to his movie.

Morgan also created the reality series "30 Days," where Spurlock and others spend thirty days living someone else's life. The show has been airing on FX since June 15, 2005. It won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Reality Program (for episode "Straight/Gay") and earned Spurlock a PGA Award nomination for Television Producer of the Year Award in Non-Fiction Television.

"I'm in two of the episodes this year. In one, I go back home to West Virginia and I work as an underground coal miner for 30 days in my home state of West Virginia. And then in the other one, I live on the Navajo reservation for 30 days and just kind of explore Indian culture in America, kind of what's happened to Native Americans in the last however many hundreds of years. I think the experience that I had on the Indian reservation was really fantastic and profound and I got a lot out of it. And to this day, I'm affected by that." Morgan Spurlock

In 2007, Spurlock had a role in the film “Drive Thru,” a horror spoof by writers/directors Brendan Cowles and Shane Kuhn starring Leighton Meester and Penn Badgley. The film is about a fast food restaurant whose demonic mascot of "Hella-Burger" has come to life and starts slashing teenagers with his meat cleaver from Hell. It was released on DVD on May 29, 2007.

Most recently, Spurlock co-wrote, produced, directed and starred in the documentary "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?" (2008), in which he hunts the most sought after terrorist. The film, dedicated to Spurlock's son, debuted on January 21, 2008, at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

"I live in New York City so this question is constantly out there. I was there on 9/11 so this is something that's brought up consistently. Bush had just been elected to his second term and Osama had released a tape and suddenly the tape was everywhere. It was on every news channel, every radio station, people were talking about him again. He was completely ubiquitous. Newscasters were like, ‘Where is Osama? Where is he? Why haven't we found him? Why haven't we brought this man to justice? Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden?’ And I said, ‘That's a great question. I'd like to know that as well.’" Morgan Spurlock

Next, Spurlock will appear as himself in two upcoming documentaries, Cass Warner's "The Brothers Warner" and Jason Brown's "Them That Work."

Awards:

• Writers Guild of America (WGA): Documentary Screenplay Award, "Super Size Me," 2004

• Sundance Film Festival: Directing Award--Documentary, "Super Size Me," 2004

• Edinburgh International Film Festival: New Director's Award, "Super Size Me," 2004

• Full Frame Documentary Film Festival: MTV>News:Docs:Prize, "Super Size Me," 2004