Donald Paul Roos (born April 14, 1955) is an American screenwriter and film director.
Life and career Roos was born in upstate New York into a conservative Roman Catholic family of mostly Irish descent. He attended the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. After graduating, Roos moved to Los Angeles, where he pursued a television screenwriting career.
Roos supported himself by working as a word processor, and to this day jokes that he has that as a fall-back plan. Roos began his writing career when he had a friend of his impersonate an agent and represent him; a phone call led to a job with playwright Mart Crowley (The Boys in the Band), who at the time was an executive producer of Hart to Hart. Roos wrote for The Colbys, Nightingales, and other TV shows, before his spec scripts led to feature film writing assignments. His first major film was 1992's Academy Award-nominated Love Field, an interracial drama starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Dennis Haysbert.
Roos's work as the writer of the film Single White Female has earned him a permanent space in Hollywood movie trivia, since that title has entered the lexicon in reference to the film's psychopathic lead character who begins to take on her roommate's identity.
Roos is well known for his work writing strong and engaging female characters, a skill that has also been useful in his film direction, leading to Independent Spirit Award nominations for actors Lisa Kudrow, Christina Ricci and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Roos himself has won a Best First Feature Independent Spirit Award, for The Opposite of Sex. Roos has polished or written the screenplay to many high-profile studio films, sometimes as uncredited script doctor.
With his husband - actor, writer, and film producer Dan Bucatinsky - he has two children, Eliza and Jonah.
Filmography Film Year Title Director Writer Producer1992 Single White Female Love Field 1995 Boys on the Side 1996 Diabolique 1998 The Opposite of Sex 2000 Bounce 2005 Happy Endings 2008 Marley & Me 2009 The Other Woman 2018 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Television Year Title Director Writer Producer Creator Notes 1989 Nightingales Wrote 2 episodes 2000 M.Y.O.B. Directed 2 episodes 2008–2014 Web Therapy Directed 131 episodes 2010 Who Do You Think You Are? 7 episodes 2011–2015 Web Therapy All 44 episodes 2017 Doubt Episode "Faith" 2017–2018 This Is Us Episodes "The 20's" and "That'll Be the Day" 2017–2021 Younger 7 episodes2020 Council of Dads 5 episodes Emily in Paris 4 episodes 2022 Uncoupled Episode "Chapter 5"
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