Akiva Goldsman: Biography

Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman was born in Brooklyn, NY, where his mother and father were both child psychologists. Goldsman graduated from Wesleyan University in 1983, where one of his classmates was Paul Schiff; they lived together in a student house where the misadventures of the residents helped to inspire the campus comedy P.C.U., which Schiff produced. After graduating from Wesleyan, Goldsman studied creative writing at New York University, and later took up screenwriting. Goldsman's first screenplay to be produced was for the comedy-drama Indian Summer; his experiences with his parents helped to inform his second produced screenplay, Silent Fall, which concerned a psychologist dealing with an autistic child who witnessed a crime. Goldsman next adapted two John Grisham novels for the screen, The Client and A Time to Kill, and two films in the Batman franchise, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. Goldsman took on the duties of producer as well as screenwriter for the first time in 1998 with the screen adaptation of the once-popular TV series Lost in Space; Goldman was also producer on the thriller Deep Blue Sea. In 2001, Goldsman won both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for his screenplay for the film A Beautiful Mind, based on the biography of John Nash written by Sylvia Nasar; Goldsman's script was also nominated for awards by the American Film Institute, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Chicago Film Critics Association. ~ All Movie Guide