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Ted Demme: Denis Leary
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Ted Demme has shown considerable versatility in the projects that he has directed and produced. Demme's directing credits include "The Ref" starring Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary and Judy Davis; "Beautiful Girls" with Uma Thurman, Natalie Portman, Matt Dillon and Timothy Hutton; the critically acclaimed "Monument Avenue" with Billy Crudup, Denis Leary, Famke Janssen, Ian Hart and Martin Sheen; and "Life" starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence.
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Penelope Cruz presented a special tribute to director Ted Demme as part of the Blow feature film nod. Demme's wife Amanda accepted on behalf of the late filmmaker. Radio legend Casey Kasem, the voice of the Prism Awards, introduced the new music category, and Meredith Brooks performed the song "Shine" from her upcoming album. Additional presenters included Thora Birch, David Carradine, Erika Christensen, Barbara Eden, Donald Faison, Dennis Leary, Kelly Lynch, Christopher McDonald, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dr. Drew Pinsky, Danny Trejo, Jim Turner and Julie Warner. The ceremony was taped for national syndication by Tribune Entertainment and will air in August.
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Reuniting with his favorite "bad boy" entertainer, Demme helmed Leary's TV special Lock N' Load (1997), and helped reveal that Leary had acting chops beyond comedy in the gritty street drama Monument Ave. (1998). Centering on Boston's Irish-American "mob," Monument Ave. starred Leary as a car thief suffering a crisis of conscience when too closely confronted with the corrupt relationship between the mob and the law. Monument Ave., though, garnered more attention at film festivals than theaters. After the comedy-drama Life (1999), starring Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy as two wrongly imprisoned lifers, failed to measure up to the popular clout of its stars, Demme drew more favorable attention for his TV work as one of the executive producers of the scathing insider comedy series Action (1999) and co-producer of the serious HBO film A Lesson Before Dying (1999). A 1940s drama about a black man wrongly sentenced to death, A Lesson Before Dying earned Demme an Emmy award.
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TED DEMME (Director) is one of the most versatile director/ producers working today. He has the ability to direct big-budget studio films, but ... put his heart and soul into smaller budget films such as last year’s Monument Ave. starring Denis Leary, Famke Janssen, Martin Sheen, Colm Meaney and Billy Crudup, which Stephen Holden of The New York Times described as having "A force and naturalness that match anything you’ll find in a film by Scorsese."
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