Bryan

» Biography

On July 27, 1969, the world was blessed with a person who had the kind of gift you don’t see very often: true talent. Bryan Fuller is his name, and the facts are these:

In 1987, Fuller graduated from Clarkston High School in Clarkston, Washington. His next course of action was to attend Lewis-Clark Sate College in Lewiston, Idaho, though he transferred to a most prestigious filmmaking school in Los Angeles: USC School of Cinematic Arts. Unfortunately, he had to drop out of the program due to lack of funding for his education. With the tuition too high, he left USC and began working as an office temp for five years. Fortunately, that didn’t seem to stop him from achieving his dreams.

A self-professed “Star Trek” geek, perhaps it is no surprise that Fuller found his true calling – as a writer – while as a fan of the series, “Deep Space Nine.” At the time of his realization that he wanted to be a television writer, “Deep Space Nine” had an open script submission policy; and so, in 1997, he penned a script for the series he had been a tremendous fan of. Although the script submission wasn’t initially accepted, he was invited to pitch the same story to the show’s producers. It was then that the script was purchased and, after selling another story to the same crew, he was hired as a full-time writer for the “Deep Space Nine” sister-series, “Star Trek: Voyager,” already in its fourth season.

By the fifth season of “Voyager,” Fuller had progressed to story editor. By the sixth, he was an executive story editor. Within three short years, Bryan Fuller had traveled all the way up to co-producer in the seventh season of the series. Over the four years he worked there, he wrote a total of twenty-one episodes: two for “Deep Space Nine” (“The Darkness and the Light” and “Empok Nor”) and a whopping nineteen for “Voyager.” Not bad for a man who started writing for the series as a mere fan!

Because “Star Trek” was syndicated, multi-episode story arcs were frowned upon. Naturally, that would be quite the limitation for any writer, especially one who wanted to explore more complex realms. Frustrated with the restrictive story telling that the show limited him to, Bryan Fuller’s agent convinced him to pen a spec script for a long-running idea he had. Once called Dead Girl, the script eventually became “Dead Like Me” and was immediately sold to a major cable network, Showtime, in June 2003. Due to creative differences, Fuller eventually left DLM in the middle of the first season run. The show was cancelled after two seasons.

Trusted with established talents, Fuller joined forces with Todd Holland in 2004 to co-create “Wonderfalls.” Short-lived, the show still saw enormous critical success and further placed Fuller on respected grounds as a writer.

In 2006, “Heroes” came onto the scene and Bryan Fuller joined the creative force as a writer and co-executive producer for the series. Although a great success with fans and critics in the first year, Fuller left the show to instead create his own show: “Pushing Daisies.” In October 2007, the show premiered on ABC to great critical acclaim. The first season was cut short due to the WGA writer’s strike, but the show still picked up twelve Emmy nominations from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. There, Fuller received a prestigious Outstanding Writing of a Comedy Series nomination. “Pushing Daisies” ultimately won three awards that evening: Best Music, Best Editing, and Best Direction of a Comedy Series.

Although still met with much positive buzz by critics, “Pushing Daisies” ended after only the second season. In mid-November of 2008, ABC announced that it would not order new episodes, causing the series to end with twenty-two total episodes. With the cancellation fresh under his belt, Bryan Fuller returned to pen more episodes for “Heroes,” now in its third season. Having rejoined the creative team on the show, Fuller became a consulting producer and played a key role on the writing staff. At that point, he signed a seven-figure, two-year deal with NBC Universal Media Studios. In June 2009, after working on story arcs for the upcoming season of “Heroes,” he left the show – citing work commitments – and is, to this day, focusing on developing new pilots for the same network.

In September 2009, Fuller started planning a new series with director Bryan Singer, originally planning to adapt an Augusten Burrough novel for the small screen. What ended up coming to fruition was a dream come true for Mr. Fuller: he was able to create “Mockingbird Lane,” a modern take on his childhood favorite show, “The Munsters.” Although it unfortunately was not picked up for season, the pilot episode – deemed a television movie instead – aired as a Halloween special.

Bryan Fuller is currently writing a screenplay for “Pushing Daisies,” which he hopes will find a home on a network like Starz in the format of a television movie or mini-series. A “Pushing Daisies” comic book originally slated for release through DC has, unfortunately, since been shelved; the comic distributor claimed a lack of interest for the series. Busy man as he is, Fuller is also attached to a SyFy channel adaptation of John Christopher’s The Lotus Caves, entitled “High Moon.” He’s also working on “Mind Fields,” a USA drama focusing on MIT pranksters.

In autumn 2011, NBC purchased a television series entitled “Hannibal,” created and written by Bryan Fuller and based on the Hannibal Lecter movie/book franchise. The series – starring Hugh Dancy as Will Graham and Mads Mikkelsen as the title character – started airing in April 2013. Bryan has stated that he envisions the series to last numerous seasons, already having a planned arc in mind for all the characters. Fans can currently watch the program; it airs on NBC every Thursday at 10PM.