Spalding Gray Filmography

Born:: June 5, 1941 in Barrington, RI
Occupation:: Actor, Screenwriter
Biography:: New England native Spalding Gray was raised in Rhode Island and schooled in Massachusetts. As a writer and actor inclined to serious spells of depression, he humorously integrated his anxieties and experiences into stage performances. He was often seated at a desk with only a microphone, notebook...Read More

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Julie Johnson

Actors: Lili Taylor, Courtney Love, Spalding Gray, Noah Emmerich, Mischa Barton, Gideon Jacobs

Synopsis: One woman's decision to improve her mind has unexpected, life-changing results in this drama. Hoboken-born housewife Julie Johnson (Lili Taylor) left high school at the wishes of Rick (Noah Emmerich), who was then her boyfriend and is now her husband; Julie spends her days cleaning house and Read More

1/1/05
Revolution #9

Actors: Michael Risley, Adrienne Shelly, Spalding Gray, Callie Thorne, Michael Rodrick

Synopsis: There's an old joke that goes "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you," and this independent thriller puts a new and frightening spin on that notion. Jackson (Michael Risley) has a good job with a computer firm and a solid relationship with his fiancée Kim (Adrienne Read More

11/15/02
How High

Actors: Method Man, Redman, Obba Babatunde, Mike Epps, Anna Maria Horsford, Fred Willard

Synopsis: A pair of real-life multi-platinum rap artists star in this genial substance abuse comedy recalling the pro-marijuana work of Cheech and Chong and such films as Half Baked (1998). Silas (Method Man) and Jamal (Redman) are buddies who enjoy smoking voluminous amounts of the illegal plant. They end Read More

12/26/01
Kate and Leopold

Actors: Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Breckin Meyer

Synopsis: Filmmaker James Mangold follows his Oscar-winning drama Girl, Interrupted (1999) with this whimsical fantasy. Meg Ryan stars as Kate McKay, a modern female executive in New York City whose drive to succeed in the cutthroat corporate world has left little time for romance. When her genius Read More

12/21/01
Coming Soon

Actors: Tricia Vessey, Gaby Hoffmann, Bonnie Root, James Roday, Mia Farrow

Synopsis: Coming Soon is yet another youth comedy about the sexual misadventures of a group of high school students, but with a difference -- this time, it follows three teenage girls who are in search of sexual and romantic fulfillment. Nell (Tricia Vessey), Jenny (Gaby Hoffmann), and Stream (Bonnie Root) Read More

5/12/00
Drunks

Actors: Richard Lewis, Faye Dunaway, Calista Flockhart, Spalding Gray, George Martin

Synopsis: An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting brings together a disparate group of people struggling with addiction to drugs and liquor in this film based on Gary Lennon's play "Blackout." Jim (Richard Lewis) is in a bad mood as he sits in on an AA meeting in the basement of a church in New York City; he's Read More

1997
Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud

Synopsis: Architect, engineer, philosopher, author and poet Buckminster Fuller was one of the great iconoclasts of the 20th century, alternately revered and misunderstood, his ideas were far ahead of their time and even today have yet to be fully realized. Best known for creating the geodesic dome (examples Read More

1996
Diabolique

Actors: Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani, Chazz Palminteri, Kathy Bates, Spalding Gray

Synopsis: Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic French thriller gets a Hollywood makeover in this glossy remake. Guy Baran (Chazz Palminteri) is the dull, loutish headmaster of a private school that has seen better days. While Guy oversees the day to day operations, the school is actually owned by his wife Mia (Isabelle Adjani Read More

1996
Gray's Anatomy

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Spalding Gray

Synopsis: Writer/actor Spalding Gray is best known for his lengthy and insightful and sharply humorous onstage monologues, two of which, Swimming to Cambodia and Monster in a Box, have been filmed and released theatrically. Gray's Anatomy is also a filmed performance of a monologue he performed in 1993. Read More

1996
Glory Daze

Actors: John Rhys-Davies, Alyssa Milano, Ben Affleck, Sam Rockwell, Megan Ward, French Stewart, Vien Hong, Vinnie DeRamus, Spalding Gray

Synopsis: "El Rancho," a sort of punk rock Animal House, is the setting for this college drama. Five roommates live in this group house on the cusp of college graduation. Jack (a mohawk-wearing Ben Affleck) is an art major pining over his ex-girlfriend, while Rob (Sam Rockwell) fears domestication after Read More

1996
Bliss

Actors: Craig Sheffer, Sheryl Lee, Terence Stamp, Casey Siemaszko, Spalding Gray

Synopsis: A provocative drama about sex, love, and trust, Bliss concerns Joseph (Craig Sheffer) and Maria (Sheryl Lee), a young married couple whose relationship is in serious trouble. While they love each other, Maria has difficulty opening up to Joseph, and, after six months of marriage, he makes the Read More

1996
Bad Company

Actors: Ellen Barkin, Susan Wooldridge, Laurence Fishburne, Jonny Lee Miller, Frank Langella, Ken Stott, Mark Drewry, Michael Beach, Angus Deayton, David Ogden Stiers

Synopsis: Laurence Fishburne and Ellen Barkin star in this complex tale of former C.I.A. agents who now specialize in freelance espionage. As the film opens, Nelson Crowe (Fishburne) is being interviewed for a position with the Grimes Organization, which focuses on industrial espionage. He is hired by Read More

1995
Beyond Rangoon

Actors: Patricia Arquette, Frances McDormand, Spalding Gray, Victor Slezak

Synopsis: In a role originally intended for Meg Ryan, Patricia Arquette plays Dr. Laura Bowman in director John Boorman's film of an American abroad in a strange country. It's 1988 and Laura is desperate to flee the United States and the memory of her husband and son's murders. Accompanied by her sister Read More

1995
The Paper

Actors: Michael Keaton, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei, Randy Quaid

Synopsis: Director Ron Howard's drama follows a beleaguered reporter during a hectic 24 hours at a New York City tabloid. Michael Keaton stars as Henry Hackett, a metro editor for the struggling New York Sun. Hackett is being wooed by the Sentinel, a more upscale paper, but he's addicted to the Read More

1994
Twenty Bucks

Actors: Linda Hunt, David Rasche, Concetta Tomei, George Morfogen, Sam Jenkins, Christopher Lloyd, Brendan Fraser, Elisabeth Shue

Synopsis: This fascinating chronicle of the life and times of a twenty dollar bill was originally written by Endre Boehm in 1935 and languished forgotten on the shelf until his son Leslie resurrected it after his father's death, and updated the script. (Both received screenwriter credit for the released Read More

1993
Zelda

1993
The Pickle

Actors: Danny Aiello, Dyan Cannon, Clotilde Courau, Shelley Winters, Barry Miller, Jerry Stiller, Chris Penn, Ally Sheedy

Synopsis: Paul Mazursky directed this comedy, which blends a broad satire of the film industry with a thoughtful tale of a middle-aged man looking back on his life's failures. Harry Stone (Danny Aiello) is a film director who desperately needs a hit -- so desperately that he gets talked into directing an Read More

1993
King of the Hill

Actors: Jesse Bradford, Jeroen Krabbé, Lisa Eichhorn, Karen Allen, Spalding Gray

Synopsis: Steven Soderbergh, after the success of sex, lies, and videotape and the commercial failure of Kafka, pulls a rabbit out of his hat with this quiet and evocative recollection of a childhood lived in the Depression, based on A. E. Hotchner's memoir. Twelve-year-old Aaron Kurlander (Jesse Bradford) Read More

1993
Monster in a Box

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Spalding Gray

Synopsis: Gray's third performance film is a document of his experiences as a procrastinating novelist; the title refers to Gray's 1900-page manuscript, which is two years past deadline. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

5/15/92
Straight Talk

Actors: Dolly Parton, James Woods, Griffin Dunne, Jerry Orbach, Michael Madsen, Deirdre O'Connell

Synopsis: Dolly Parton and James Woods as the screen's hottest new romantic team? That's only one of several casting surprises in this romantic comedy. Shirlee Kenyon (Dolly Parton) has had enough of life in her small Arkansas town, not to mention her small-minded Arkansas boyfriend Steve (Michael Madsen). Read More

4/3/92
To Save a Child

Synopsis: A newlywed's infant meets a fate worse than death in this horror movie. She believes the child has died, but then she learns the awful truth--her husband and his coven of witches are using the infant in their terrifying rituals. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1991
Heavy Petting

Actors: David Byrne, Sandra Bernhard, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs

Synopsis: Those of us who had to suffer such "instructional" films as Dating Do's and Don'ts in high school will be especially entertained by Heavy Petting. In the visually sarcastic manner of the nuclear-age documentary The Atomic Cafe, the film assembles masses of information and misinformation about Read More

9/22/89
The Image

Actors: Albert Finney, Marsha Mason, Swoosie Kurtz, John Mahoney, Kathy Baker

Synopsis: Albert Finney stars as a TV-news anchorman who wrongly implicates a good friend in a savings-and-loan scandal; when the friend commits suicide, Finney must question his ethics and obsession with high Nielsen ratings. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

1989
Our Town

Actors: Spalding Gray

1989
Beaches

Actors: Bette Midler, Barbara Hershey, John Heard, Spalding Gray, Lainie Kazan

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Iris Rainer Dart, Beaches traces the 30-year oil-and-water friendship between free-spirited Bronx Jew CC Bloom (Bette Midler) and uptight San Francisco WASP Hillary Essex (Barbara Hershey). The two meet as children in Atlantic City (played by Mayim Bialik and Marcie Leeds) and Read More

12/21/88
Clara's Heart

Actors: Whoopi Goldberg, Michael Ontkean, Kathleen Quinlan, Neil Patrick Harris, Spalding Gray

Synopsis: In this sentimental coming-of-age drama, directed by Richard Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird) and written by Mark Medoff (Children of a Lesser God), Whoopi Goldberg plays Clara Mayfield, whom Leona Hart (Kathleen Quinlan) meets up with in Jamaica, where Leona retreats to mourn the death of her Read More

10/7/88
Stars and Bars

Actors: Daniel Day-Lewis, Harry Dean Stanton, Martha Plimpton, Matthew Cowles, Joan Cusack

Synopsis: Though a fine cast was assembled for this comedy, none can save this embarrassingly humorless satire. Henderson Dores (Daniel-Day Lewis) is a very proper British art expert sent to rural Georgia by his boss to purchase a painting by Renoir. The present owner, hillbilly Loomis Gage (Harry Dean Stanton Read More

3/18/88
Spalding Gray: Terrors of Pleasure

Synopsis: Spalding Gray's Terrors of Pleasure is a monologue from the comedian/dramatist concerning his attempt to find a piece of land to own. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

1988
Swimming to Cambodia

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Spalding Gray, Sam Waterston, Ira Wheeler

Synopsis: By rights, an 87-minute filmed monologue should be as stimulating as watching paint dry. Ah, but when the monologist is the brilliant Spalding Gray, then the audience is in for a cerebral feast. Based on his one-man Broadway presentation, Swimming to Cambodia is a mesmerizing account of Gray's Read More

3/13/87
True Stories

Actors: David Byrne, John Goodman, Swoosie Kurtz, Spalding Gray, Alix Elias

Synopsis: Director David Byrne (of Talking Heads) takes an outside-looking-in glance at Texas and Texans in True Stories. Casting himself as the protagonist/narrator, Byrne adopts what he thinks is "standard" western garb and drives his red convertible into the small town of Virgil. Here he observes the Read More

10/10/86
Hard Choices

Actors: Gary McCleery, John Seitz, John Sayles, John Snyder, Martin Donovan

Synopsis: In this odd mix of social commentary, forbidden romance, police action thriller, and teenage delinquency, a well-meaning social worker slowly careens off the charts when a 15-year-old teen is about to receive a stiff sentence as an accessory to a crime. Bobby (Gary McCleery) is driving the getaway Read More

5/16/86
Seven Minutes in Heaven

Actors: Jennifer Connelly, Maddie Corman, Byron Thames, Alan Boyce, Polly Draper

Synopsis: This modest teen comedy has the usual themes revolving around sex: how to handle it, how to relate to it, and how to do just about everything except engage in it. The focus is on two teenagers, one is the serious Natalie (Jennifer Connelly). She has her eyes set on becoming President of the U.S. Read More

5/9/86
The Communists Are Comfortable (And Three Other Stories)

Actors: Willem Dafoe, Spalding Gray, Ron Vawter

Synopsis: This is an undistinguished, avant-garde film by director, editor, and narrator Ken Kobland that may confuse most viewers at best, and turn off others at worst. Ostensibly expressing a post-liberal depression, there is long monolog of an apparently disillusioned worker and some polemics written Read More

1985
Almost You

Actors: Brooke Adams, Griffin Dunne, Karen Young, Joe Silver, Marty Watt, Christine Estabrook

Synopsis: After Griffin Dunne's wife Brooke Adams is injured in a car crash, Dunne begins an affair with Adams' nurse Karen Young. You think that takes gall? Dunne also becomes best friends with Young's boyfriend Marty Watt. Believe it or not, Griffin Dunne is the most likeable character in the movie. After Read More

1984
The Killing Fields

Actors: Sam Waterston, Dr. Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Julian Sands, Craig T. Nelson, Athol Fugard, Spalding Gray, Bill Paterson

Synopsis: The Killing Fields is a romanticized adaptation of an eyewitness magazine story by New York Times correspondent Sidney Schanberg. Covering the U.S. pullout from Vietnam in 1975, Schanberg (Sam Waterston) relies on his Cambodian friend and translator Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor) for inside Read More

1984
Variety

Actors: Sandy McLeod, Will Patton, Richard Davidson, Luis Guzman, Nan Goldin

Synopsis: Christine (Sandy McLeod) is a ticket-taker at a Manhattan porn cinema. Her ability to separate reel life from real life is seriously impaired in this slow, often silent, and ultimately enigmatic study of a lonely young woman who first despises the porn and then becomes fascinated with it and the Read More

1983
Cowards

Actors: Thomas Murphy, Philip Baker Hall

Synopsis: Leading man John Rose finds himself faced with a difficult moral decision when he must choose between following his draft-dodging friends to Canada and living under the stigma of cowardice or doing his patriotic duty and risking his life. Look closely and you'll spot Spalding Gray as one of the Read More

1970

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