# Leslye Headland

Leslye Headland (born November 26, 1980) is an American film and television director, screenwriter, and playwright. She directed the comedic films Bachelorette (2012), and Sleeping with Other People (2015). She co-created the Netflix series Russian Doll (2019–2022) which earned her two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. She served as the creator and showrunner on the Disney+ Star Wars series The Acolyte (2024). As a playwright, she has written a string of plays based on the Seven Deadly Sins which include Assistance and Cult of Love, the later of which marked her debut as a playwright on Broadway in 2024.

## Early life and education

Leslye Headland was raised in suburban Maryland. She graduated in 1999 from Staples High School. In 2002, she received her BFA degree in drama from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where she attended Playwrights Horizons Theater School. Upon graduating college, Headland spent six years working as an assistant at Miramax, one year of which was spent as Harvey Weinstein's personal assistant. Her experience during that time is what inspired her 2012 play Assistance, though she claims she was not physically assaulted by Weinstein and did not witness any incidents.

## Career
### 2010–2018: Early works

Headland got her first job in the television industry in 2010 as a staff writer on the FX series Terriers. She wrote and directed the 2012 film version of her play Bachelorette, which was her debut as a feature film director. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Bachelorette co-starred Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan, and Isla Fisher as three troubled women who reunite for the wedding of a friend played by Rebel Wilson, who was ridiculed in high school. Headland's play Assistance premiered in 2008 and was staged in 2012 at the New York theatre space Playwrights Horizons. Television rights were acquired by NBC in 2013, to be executive-produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay; Krysten Ritter of the ABC series Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 was set to both star and executive produce. Dramatists Play Service published Assistance in late 2013.
Headland is the screenwriter of the 2014 remake of the film About Last Night, itself an adaptation of the 1974 David Mamet play Sexual Perversity in Chicago. In 2015, Headland directed Sleeping with Other People based on her own script, which starred Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie. At the premier of the film, Headland said in an interview with The Wrap that her "elevator" pitch for the movie was, "Like When Harry Met Sally for assholes." The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Headland has directed episodes of the television series Heathers (for which she also served as an executive producer) and two consecutive episodes of the 2016 Starz TV series Blunt Talk, starring Patrick Stewart. She has also directed episodes for SMILF and Black Monday.

### 2019–present: Television expansion

Headland directed four episodes and co-wrote three episodes of Russian Doll, which she co-created for Netflix with Natasha Lyonne and Amy Poehler. Russian Doll is the first television series that Headland co-created, and she was the last of the three women to come on board for the project. The series premiered on February 1, 2019. On the female driven narrative of Russian Doll, Headland stated, "It was really important to explore a show about a female protagonist that asked spiritual and existential questions, as opposed to a show that was about a woman finding romance, a woman finding balance between her personal life and her love life... those are all worthy endeavors and excellent shows are made about all of those things, but we were just thinking 'What hasn't been done?'" Headland alluded to being involved in a second season of Russian Doll, though Lyonne ultimately took over as showrunner.
Headland was hired by Netflix to direct the film Tell Me Everything, a thriller about marriage based on the young adult novel of the same name. She was also set to executive produce and direct a film based on the novel American Huckster: How Chuck Blazer Got Rich From—and Sold Out—the Most Powerful Cabal in World Sports for HBO Films starring Will Ferrell. She was additionally anticipated to executive produce and direct the first episode of the Fox series Sisters. In 2019, she signed a deal with Fox 21 Television Studios.
In June 2023, she was announced as the director of the upcoming adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid's 2017 novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
Star Wars: The Acolyte
On April 22, 2020, it was unofficially announced through Variety that Headland would be the showrunner and writer for an upcoming Star Wars series on the Disney+ streaming service. The series would be female-centric and would take place in a different part of the Star Wars timeline than other projects in the franchise. On May 4, 2020 (Star Wars Day), it was officially announced that Headland will write, executive produce, and serve as showrunner for her own Star Wars series for Disney+, entitled The Acolyte, which takes place during the final days of the High Republic.
It was revealed, in an May 2024 New York Times interview with Headland, that the show cost $180 million (for eight episodes) and took four years to make, with the interviewer, and New York Times reporter Brooks Barnes, arguing pleases fans of the original Star Wars and telling an "entirely new story...that showcases women and people of color." Some reviewers called the budget "staggering", "shocking", and "hefty" and compared it to the reported budgets of Game of Thrones, The Mandalorian, Secret Invasion, Citadel, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and other series.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the series has an average approval rating of 78% based 246 critics' reviews, and 19% based on 25,000 audience ratings. The Hollywood Reporter, ComingSoon.net, The Mary Sue, The Independent, CBR, and The Root reported that the series was "panned" by audiences through review bombing the series on public review sites like Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and IMDB, with some critics saying that those who review-bombed the series were "annoying" and racist. Others, such as Angela Watercutter of Wired, claimed that no review bombing was going on, but that people were only "expressing displeasure" for the series through audience scores. The series was canceled after one season, reportedly because viewership was not "strong enough" for a second season, and, in the view of The Hollywood Reporter, because of people's changing habits when watching streaming series and the erosion of "goodwill of the Star Wars brand" for series. Others cited the show's cost as another reason for the show's cancellation. Deadline Hollywood also reported that prior to this announcement, Headland had indicated, in interviews, that she had "pitched her ideas for a second season."

### Theatre

As a playwright, Headland wrote the Seven Deadly Sins cycle: Cinephillia (lust), Bachelorette (gluttony), Assistance (greed), Surfer Girl (sloth), Reverb (wrath), The Accidental Blonde (envy), and Cult of Love (pride). Part of the inspiration for the Seven Deadly Plays came from her Christian upbringing. Her final play in the series, Cult of Love, opened in 2018. She has also written a neo-noir style play The Layover which received mixed reviews in 2016. Her play Cult of Love is set to open on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre in the Fall of 2024 as part of Second Stage Theatre's 2024–2025 season, marking Headland's Broadway debut as a playwright.

## Influences and themes

Leslye Headland was brought up in a strict religious home and grew up watching the Marx Brothers and MGM musicals. Headland notes that Alfred Hitchcock's film Rear Window was the first time she saw the camera as a tool and realized what a director did. Later in life as she was completing her BFA at New York University, Headland notes the difficulty and dark time she faced due to the 9/11 attacks and names David Fincher's Fight Club as the reason she has a lifelong artistic need to make a joke about what is truly painful.
Addiction is a theme that plays heavily into her projects. Regarding her work Headland has stated, "I'm attracted to stories about people who have created prisons for themselves and are trying to get out of them."

## Personal life

Headland married actress Rebecca Henderson in September 2016.

## Works
### Film

| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
| 2012 | Bachelorette | Yes | Yes | Co-producer |
| 2014 | About Last Night | No | Yes | No |
| 2015 | Sleeping with Other People | Yes | Yes | Co-executive |

### Television

| Year | Title | Director | Executive producer | Writer | Notes |
| 2010 | Terriers | No | No | Yes | 2 episodes |
| 2016 | Blunt Talk | Yes | No | No | 2 episodes |
| 2017 | SMILF | Yes | No | No | 3 episodes |
| 2018 | Heathers | Yes | Yes | No | Executive produced pilot only, directed 4 episodes |
| 2019 | Black Monday | Yes | No | No | 2 episodes |
| 2019 | Almost Family | Yes | Yes | No | Directed: "Pilot" |
| 2019–22 | Russian Doll | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-creator, wrote 3 episodes and directed 4 episodes |
| 2022–23 | Single Drunk Female | Yes | Yes | No | 2 episodes |
| 2024 | The Acolyte | Yes | Yes | Yes | Creator, wrote 2 episodes and directed 2 episodes |
| 2025 | Dying for Sex | Yes | Yes | No | |

### Theater

As a playwright
| Year | Title | Premiered Venue |
| 2008 | Cinephillia | |
| 2010 | Bachelorette | Second Stage Theater, Off-Broadway |
| 2010 | The Accidental Blonde | IAMA Theatre Company, Los Angeles |
| 2011 | Reverb | Goodman Theater, Chicago |
| 2012 | Assistance | Playwrights Horizons, Off-Broadway |
| 2018 | Surfer Girl | Foley Gallery, Off-Broadway |
| 2016 | The Layover | Second Stage Theater, Off-Broadway |
| 2018 | Cult of Love | Atwater Village Theatre, Los Angeles |

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Award | Category | Work | Result |
| 2012 | Locarno International Film Festival Awards | Variety Piazza Grande Award | Bachelorette | Nominated |
| 2015 | Nantucket Film Festival | New Voices in Screenwriting Award | New Voices in Screenwriting Award | Won |
| 2015 | Tribeca Film Festival Awards | Audience Award, Narrative | Sleeping with Other People | Nominated |
| 2019 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Comedy Series | Russian Doll | Nominated |
| 2019 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series | Russian Doll (for "Nothing in This World Is Easy") | Nominated |
| 2019 | Gotham Awards | Breakthrough Series – Short Form | Russian Doll | Nominated |
| 2020 | Hugo Awards | Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) | Russian Doll | Nominated |
| 2020 | Nebula Awards | Ray Bradbury Award | Russian Doll (for "The Way Out") | Nominated |
| 2020 | Writers Guild of America Awards | Comedy Series | Russian Doll | Nominated |
| 2020 | Writers Guild of America Awards | New Series | Russian Doll | Nominated |