Film

W. Blake Herron

Princess Grace Award:
Graduate Film Scholarship, 1989

      A Texan by birth and heritage, William Blake Herron eventually relocated with his family to Chicago, Illinois, and then subsequently to Faribault, Minnesota, where he graduated valedictorian of the Shattuck School. A summer season working at the Guthrie Theatre for eminent directors Liviu Ciulei and Richard Foreman preceded his matriculation into Middlebury College. There, Mr. Herron entered the institute’s elite Russian faculty and went on to spend his junior year studying at the Pushkin Institute in Moscow, where he received acting training from members of the Tagantka Theatre and various ‘underground’ dramatic companies.

      Upon returning to the States, Mr. Herron moved to New York with his rock band, Neon Scream, and performed in such famed venues as CBGB’s, The Pyramid Club, and the Bitter End. At the same time, Mr. Herron supported his musical aspirations by working as a paralegal for Wall Street law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobsen. Mr. Herron’s time was spent equally between assisting entertainment industry clients and working on multimillion dollar and billion dollar corporate takeovers. Rather than continue on the expected path to law school, Mr. Herron applied to New York University’s competitive graduate film program. Following his acceptance, he won over twelve national and international awards for his film shorts, including the Princess Grace Award for Emerging Artists. During this starving artist period, Mr. Herron supported his ‘film habit’ through a variety of odd jobs, among them -- press liaison for Billy Joel during his tour of the Soviet Union, patient supervisor at an asylum for violent retarded men, building demolition worker, and test subject for an electric shock pain study. Out of poverty came a prolific period of writing, yielding two screenplays which finished simultaneously in the semifinals of the Motion Picture Academy’s Nichol Fellowship, and a third which ascended to the top twenty of the Sundance Writer’s Lab. With accolades under arm, Mr. Herron moved to Hollywood and was quickly given a writing assignment at Warner Brothers. Over the following years Mr. Herron wrote for literally every major studio, in both film and TV. Eventually he returned to his passion of directing with the semi-autobiographical film ‘A Texas Funeral’, starring Martin Sheen, Joanne Whalley, Robert Patrick, and Chris Noth. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation. Critics enthusiastically embraced the movie when it was released theatrically in Europe, and as a domestic cable premiere on Starz. Three of his scripts have subsequently been realized by other directors -- The Bourne Identity (Universal), Ripley Underground (Lionsgate) and Role Models (Universal, story by credit). Last year Mr. Herron expanded his career into television, creating and showrunning the action-adventure series ‘Agent X’, starring Sharon Stone, which premiered on TNT. Mr. Herron is an avid martial artist, and holds expert level belts in two fighting systems. He lives with his wife, thirteen year-old son, and ten year-old daughter in the Pacific Palisades, California.