F. Gary Gray

Felix Gary Gray born July 17 1969 is an American filmmaker music video director and actor Gray directed Friday Set It Off The Negotiator and Straight Outta Compton as well as the remake of The Italian Job Gray was born in New York He began his career in 1989 when he appeared uncredited in the satire comedy film Major League Three years later he directed the music video for Ice Cubes It Was a Good Day The video is a literal adaptation of the lyrics He would go on to direct subsequent videos for Ice Cube as well as artists such as Cypress Hill Outkast Dr Dre and Queen Latifah At 24 Gray directed his first film the urban comedy Friday with rapperproducer Ice Cube and Chris Tucker Next he directed the film Set It Off with Jada Pinkett and Queen Latifah He then went on to direct The Negotiator The film starred Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey and Oscar nominee Samuel L Jackson and earned Gray both Best Film and Best Director awards at the 1998 Acapulco Film Festival Gray is also known for The Italian Job an actionthriller starring Academy Award winner Charlize Theron and Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg Gray garnered the Best Director award at the 2004 Black American Film Festival for his work on the film which surpassed the 100 million mark in the domestic box office His next film was A Man Apart a violent action thriller starring Vin Diesel He would later direct Be Cool an adaptation of Elmore Leonards novel of the same name The John Travolta vehicle was a critical flop but made 952 million worldwide His next film was the thriller Law Abiding Citizen starring Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler Scripted by Kurt Wimmer it grossed over 100 million worldwide Gary is also responsible for directing many music videos He has worked with artists like TLC Dr Dre Tupac Shakur Mary J Blige Stevie Wonder Babyface and JayZ among others Gray received The Ivan Dixon Award of Achievement from the Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center and was named one of the 50 Best and Brightest African Americans Under 40 by Black Enterprise magazine He was honored by the African American Film Critics Association with their 2004 Special Achievement Award and was recognized by the Artist Empowerment Coalition with the Artist Empowerment Award that same year He also received the Pioneer Director award from the PanAfrican Film and Arts Festival in 2010 Description above from the Wikipedia article  F Gary Gray licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia