Gregory Berlanti Bio
Gregory Berlanti (born May 24, 1972) is an American screenwriter, producer and director known for shaping much of modern primetime and superhero television. He first drew attention through his work on the series Dawson’s Creek and went on to create, write, or produce hits including Everwood, Brothers & Sisters, Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and You. In 2000 he founded the production company Berlanti Productions, and he later became the architect of the interconnected DC Comics television universe known as the Arrowverse. Berlanti was named to Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.
Early Life and Background
Gregory Berlanti was born on May 24, 1972, in Suffern, New York. He is the son of Eugene “Gene” Berlanti and Barbara Moller Berlanti, and he grew up with one sister, Dina. Berlanti has Italian and Irish ancestry, and in a 2004 interview with Entertainment Weekly he described his upbringing with the line, “We were Italians in a town of WASPs,” noting that his family was not “doing as well as 90% of the community.”
He attended Rye High School in Rye, New York, graduating with the class of 1989, and later enrolled at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. While at Northwestern, where he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, Berlanti studied toward a Bachelor of Science degree and graduated in 1994. The custom production logo that follows every Berlanti Productions show, in which a family turns its back to the audience and the voice “Greg, move your head!” is heard, is a tribute to his late father Gene, who used to shout that line when young Greg blocked the television.
Path to Screenwriter and Producer
After graduating from Northwestern in 1994, Berlanti worked toward a career in television writing. In 1998, at the age of 26, he landed his first writing job on the WB series Dawson’s Creek. He quickly rose through the producing ranks from staff writer to executive producer, and when creator Kevin Williamson stepped away from the show in 2000, Berlanti was promoted to showrunner at just 28.
During this period Berlanti also spoke publicly about the importance of introducing a gay character into a primetime drama and featuring the first same-sex kiss between two men on American network television on Dawson’s Creek. By the age of 32, he had already written and directed his first feature film, The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy, which starred Timothy Olyphant, Zach Braff, Justin Theroux, and Dean Cain. These early wins laid the groundwork for the prolific career he would build as a writer, producer, and director.
Gregory Berlanti Career
Early Career (1998–2005)
Berlanti’s earliest success came through Dawson’s Creek, where his work as a writer and showrunner earned him a 2000 SHINE Award for his writing. In 2001 he received a GLAAD Media Award for The Broken Hearts Club, and in 2003 he was given the Turner Prize at the Environmental Media Awards for Everwood. He subsequently created two additional drama series for Warner Bros.: Everwood and Jack & Bobby, forming the joint venture Berlanti/Liddell Productions with business partner Mickey Liddell in March 2003.
In 2006, Berlanti transitioned to Touchstone Television and established Berlanti Television as his new production company. That same year he began producing and writing Brothers & Sisters for ABC, a family drama that aired for five seasons and featured the first same-sex legal marriage on network television. In 2005 he also received the Religion Communicators Council Wilbur Award for the “A Man of Faith” episode of Jack & Bobby and a Gracie Award from the Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television.
Breakthrough (2006–2015)
Throughout this stretch Berlanti expanded his influence across broadcast and cable. In 2007 he executive produced the ABC drama Dirty Sexy Money, which featured the first recurring transgender character on primetime television and aired for two seasons. In 2008 he created and produced the ABC legal drama Eli Stone, and in 2010 he directed the feature film Life as We Know It, starring Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel. He also developed and produced the USA Network miniseries Political Animals in 2012, a project that brought him a 2012 Directors Guild of America Award nomination and a 2013 Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie.
His partnership with DC Comics began in 2011 when, alongside Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim, Berlanti created and produced Arrow for The CW. The series premiered on October 10, 2012, and launched what would become the Arrowverse. In 2014 he expanded that world with The Flash on The CW and co-wrote and executive produced Supergirl, which initially aired on CBS before moving to The CW in 2016. In 2015 he released the film Pan under the Berlanti Productions banner and won a Saturn Award for Best Superhero Adaptation Television Series for The Flash, along with a Christopher Award for the same series.
By the mid-2010s, Berlanti was operating at a remarkable scale. In the 2017–18 television season he tied Jerry Bruckheimer’s 2005–06 record by having 10 different live-action scripted series airing at the same time, and in 2018–19 he broke that record with 14. In June 2018 he signed the most expensive producer deal in television history with Warner Bros., and by the 2019–20 season his active scripted count had grown to 18.
Notable Works and Milestones
Among Berlanti’s signature works are Riverdale, which premiered on The CW on January 26, 2017; the Netflix horror series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, first released on October 26, 2018; the Netflix thriller You, which premiered on September 9, 2018; and the 2018 film Love, Simon, a gay romantic comedy-drama that he directed and which grossed $66 million worldwide. He also produced the film Red, White & Royal Blue for Amazon Prime Video, which premiered on August 11, 2023, and he directed Fly Me to the Moon for Apple TV+, released in July 2024. His Berlanti/Schechter Films company maintains a first-look deal with Netflix.
Gregory Berlanti Award Nominations
Across his career, Gregory Berlanti has earned recognition from a wide range of industry organizations. He received a 2012 Directors Guild of America Award nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Miniseries for directing the pilot of Political Animals, followed by a 2013 Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie for the same series. In 2021, the Berlanti-produced series The Flight Attendant earned nine Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series, as well as two Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy.
Gregory Berlanti Awards Won
Gregory Berlanti has collected numerous honors for his contributions to television and film. He received the Governors Award at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2024 and the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television at the 33rd Producers Guild of America Awards in 2022. He also won a 2019 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Wide Release for Love, Simon, a 2019 Television Showman of the Year Award at the 56th Annual ICG Publicists Awards, and a 2019 Patron of the Artists Award from the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, among many other honors.
Gregory Berlanti Family
Gregory Berlanti is the son of Eugene “Gene” Berlanti and Barbara Moller Berlanti, and he has one sister, Dina. He married former LA Galaxy soccer player Robbie Rogers on December 2, 2017, after the couple became engaged on December 31, 2016. Berlanti and Rogers have two children together: a son born in 2016 and a daughter born in 2019, both welcomed via surrogacy. In 2020, Berlanti and the Berlanti Family Foundation gifted $2 million to the Northwestern University School of Communication to establish the Barbara Berlanti Professorship in Writing for the Screen and Stage, named in honor of his late mother.
Personal Life
Gregory Berlanti has been in a relationship with Robbie Rogers since mid-2013. In 2018, Berlanti and Rogers chaired Fuck Cancer’s inaugural Barbara Berlanti Heroes Gala, named after Berlanti’s late mother, and Berlanti Productions served as a sponsor of the event. He is a board member of Fuck Cancer, a health organization launched in 2009 that focuses on the early detection and prevention of cancer. Berlanti has also continued his philanthropic work with Northwestern University, where his most recent endowment represents the Berlanti Family Foundation’s largest charitable contribution to a single organization to date.