Michael Christopher White (born June 28, 1970) is an American writer, actor and producer for television and film. He has won numerous awards, including the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award for the 2000 film Chuck & Buck, which he wrote and starred in.[1] He has written the screenplays for films such as School of Rock (2003) and has directed several films that he has written, such as Brad's Status (2017). He was a co-creator, executive producer, writer, director and actor on the HBO series Enlightened.[2] White is also known for his appearances on reality television, competing on two seasons of The Amazing Race and later becoming a contestant and runner-up on Survivor: David vs. Goliath. He created, writes and directs the ongoing HBO satirical comedy anthology series The White Lotus, for which he has won three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Early life
White was born in Pasadena, California.[3] He is the son of Lyla Lee (née Loehr), a fundraising executive, and former executive director of the Pasadena Playhouse, and James Melville "Mel" White, a former speechwriter and ghostwriter for Religious Right figures such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.[2] His father came out as gay in 1994 and became an activist.[4][3] Due to his father's religious background, White grew up in a modest household in a conservative Christian community.[5] He attended Polytechnic School which he thought was a "very conservative country-club school".[5] Later he went to Wesleyan University, where he met writing partner, Zak Penn. Penn convinced him to move back to Los Angeles, and helped him to get work soon after graduating.[5]
He frequently collaborates with actor–writer Jack Black on films. Together they formed the production company Black and White, which closed in 2006.[8] White is not a fan of classic rock, but he wrote School of Rock specifically so Black could perform his own favorite rock music.[9]
Laura Dern brought White into a project with HBO which became the series Enlightened that premiered on October 10, 2011. Dern's character, Amy Jellicoe, goes to a Hawaiian retreat after her professional life publicly implodes, and is introduced to meditation. White himself had suffered an on-the-job meltdown while running an earlier television series, and incorporated elements of that experience, as well as his own exploration of Buddhist meditation, into the new series' plot.[14][6] White wrote the pilot and all the episodes in the first and second seasons.[2]
White is a credited writer on The Emoji Movie; he spent three weeks with the film's screenwriters and helped with the structure of the script. For this project he received a Golden Raspberry Award.[15][16] He wrote and directed the 2017 film Brad's Status.
White was a contestant on Survivor: David vs. Goliath, as a member of the Goliath tribe, then to reshuffled Jabeni tribe and the merged Kalokalo tribe.[22] He made it to Day 39 and received three jury votes, finishing in second place behind the winner, Nick Wilson.
White said he had been a big fan of the show, and because of his connections had developed a friendship with the show's host Jeff Probst, providing the host suggestions towards improving the show. For instance, Probst stated that it was White who discouraged him from bringing back Redemption Island for Survivor: San Juan del Sur.[23] At some point White decided to start trying out to be a participant of the show, but he failed to be picked over what he believed was a concern of having "sloppy seconds" from other reality television programs. White noted that once he was selected, he had had no other conversations with Probst until the game was concluded.[24]
Steve Baker, Ricky Blitt, Will Carlough, Tobias Carlson, Jacob Fleisher, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Claes Kjellstrom, Jack Kukoda, Bob Odenkirk, Bill O'Malley, Matthew Alec Portenoy, Greg Pritikin, Rocky Russo, Olle Sarri, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, Jeremy Sosenko, Jonathan van Tulleken, and Jonas Wittenmark – Movie 43 (2013)
