Dan Futterman

Dan Futterman is not Paul Rudd. He does seem to be aging the same way, and they are physically very similar, but they are not the same person. For one thing, Futterman has two more Oscar nominations than Rudd. Granted, he lost both of them, for Capote to Brokeback Mountain and for Foxcatcher to Birdman. (I dodge that aspect of the Discourse by not yet having seen Foxcatcher.) Still, he didn’t act in either of them. Both of the nominations are for screenplay, one adapted and one original. So far as I know, Rudd doesn’t write at all, though you can now buy Scott Lang’s autobiography.

Futterman grew up in Westchester County and graduated from Columbia, after which he went into acting. Impressively, he seems to have gone from Off-Off-Broadway to the replacement Louis in Angels in America. He also threatens Robin Williams in The Fisher King in the same year as that first play. He seems to have spent a lot of those early years onstage and in movies filmed in New York or in its environs; two of his early movies actually have “New York” in the title. Though several of his others were filmed other places.

And then there was The Birdcage. Honestly, I don’t much like the character of Val, who seems to operate under the assumption that, as the straight one, his relationship is the important one. His parents have been together for decades, but because his stepfather is, you know, Nathan Lane, he can be sacrificed so he can marry the daughter of the homophobes. It’s gross. But Futterman is fun in the role. He’s believable as the son of Robin Williams and Christine Baranski, too.

A few years later, he went on to play Vincent Gray, Amy’s younger brother on Judging Amy. It’s a mostly forgotten show, I feel, despite starring Tyne Daly as his mother. Star Amy Brenneman is less well known, and of course Marcus Giamatti is best known as Paul’s older brother. Still, it’s a fun show, and it’s disappointing that it’s not streaming anywhere. I watched it obsessively when it was on TBS in the middle of the day and I was watching TBS all day in the middle of the day.

And, you know, the screenwriting. His old friend from seventh grade, Bennett Miller, directed his first movie. Then they asked another old friend to act in it, and that guy ended up getting an Oscar. Miller lost his nomination for Best Director to Ang Lee, of course, but their old buddy Philip became the only person to defeat Heath Ledger for an acting Oscar. And, coincidentally, one of the people to lose against him. Hollywood can be a strange place sometimes.