Roger Kumble

Roger Kumble (born May 28, 1966) is an American film director, screenwriter, and playwright. Life and career Kumble was raised in Harrison, New York, and attended Harrison High School. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1988, where he wrote for the "Waa Mu" show. He began his career as a playwright and director in 1993 with the Hollywood satire "Pay or Play", which garnered him the LA Weekly Theater Award for Best Comic Writing. His second play, 1997's "d girl", starring David Schwimmer, earned him four Dramalogue Awards. In 2003, Kumble completed his Hollywood trilogy with the critically acclaimed "Turnaround", again starring David Schwimmer, which sold out its entire run in Los Angeles. He returned to the theater in 2011 with his all female play "Girls Talk" starring Brooke Shields and Constance Zimmer. Los Angeles Times critic Margaret Gray voted "Girls Talk" the best new play of 2011. Kumble made his feature-film-directorial debut with 1999's Sony Pictures box-office hit, Cruel Intentions, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon and Selma Blair. His screenplay transposed the French novel Dangerous Liaisons to modern New York. In 2015, Cruel Intentions: The '90s Musical was adapted from his film, and had an extended run off-Broadway. He followed with the Sony Pictures comedy The Sweetest Thing, starring Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, Jason Bateman, Thomas Jane and Selma Blair who also starred in his previous film, Cruel Intentions. New Line Cinema's Just Friends, starring Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris and Amy Smart. Both Sweetest Thing and Just Friends were voted two of the top twenty underrated films of the decade by the New York Post.