Reggie Rock Bythewood

Biography

Reggie Rock Bythewood is an American filmmaker and actor from the Bronx. After drama training at the High School of Performing Arts, he appeared on the soap opera Another World and in John Sayles's The Brother from Another Planet (1984), an experience that pushed him toward writing and directing. He earned a theater degree from Marymount Manhattan College and co-founded the New York stage company The Tribe, then moved to Los Angeles, where he joined the Walt Disney Writers Fellowship Program and wrote and produced New York Undercover. He wrote the screenplay for Spike Lee's Get on the Bus and did the credited rewrite of Notorious. His feature directing debut, Dancing in September (2000), screened at Sundance and later aired on HBO. He also directed Biker Boyz, Daddy's Girl, and One Night in Vegas, plus the pilot Gun Hill, for which he won a 2014 NAACP Image Award. He co-created Shots Fired and created Swagger.

61years old

Turns 62 on July 7in 238 days

Born July 7, 1965The Bronx
Star sign: CancerThe sign runs June 21 to July 22

Movie Career

Films: 3
Career span: 7 years1977 to 1984

Every film, newest first

1984Exterminator 2IMDb rating 4.6
1984The Brother from Another PlanetIMDb rating 6.8
1977Fight for Your LifeIMDb rating 6.3

Genres

Did you know?!

A role that slipped away
Bythewood turned down a role on the soap opera One Life To Live in 1990 and moved to Los Angeles to pursue screenwriting instead.
First role
As a senior in high school, Bythewood landed a role on the soap opera Another World. Because the High School of Performing Arts barred students from professional acting, he left and went to Quintanos School for the Young Professionals.
A change of course
Bythewood acted in The Brother from Another Planet, a film by John Sayles, after high school. Sayles inspired him to write and direct, so he moved away from acting.
A first
Bythewood joined Walt Disney's Writers Fellowship Program as one of its first members. That led to a writing job on the NBC comedy A Different World.
First role
Bythewood's first feature film as a director was Dancing in September, an acclaimed indie flick that screened at the Sundance Film Festival. HBO acquired it, and it became an HBO original movie.