American film director
A veteran go-to script doctor in the industry, Steven Zaillian has contributed to screenplays uncredited on a number of projects over the years. They include Patriot Games , Crimson Tide , Twister , Primal Fear , Amistad , Saving Private Ryan , Black Hawk Down , Road to Perdition and Body of Lies . He was also called upon in post-production to rewrite some scenes for re-shoots for Salt .
Is of Armenian descent.
Graduated from San Francisco State University in 1975 with a degree in Cinema.
Directed one Academy Award - nominated performance: Robert Duvall in A Civil Action .
Wrote four screenplays for feature films nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award: Awakenings , Schindlers List , Gangs of New York and Moneyball . Of those, Schindlers List won Best Picture and earned Zaillian an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Father with wife Elizabeth of Charles Zaillian and Nicholas Zaillian.
I find that most of my scripts have a lot more scenes than most films,so the average movie might have 100 scenes, my average script has 300,scenes.
I have no problem with anyone being precise about small things.
