Ray McKinnon
Biography
Ray McKinnon is a writer, actor, director and producer. He served from 2012 through 2016 as creator, showrunner, writer and director of the Peabody Award winning, Sundance TV series, "Rectify."
As an actor, McKinnon has created a canon of unforgettable, offbeat and richly textured characters. In a career spanning two decades, McKinnon steadily built an impressive resume, including memorable roles on FX's critically acclaimed "Sons of Anarchy" (as Lincoln Potter) and the award winning HBO series "Deadwood" (as Reverend H.W. Smith). He has also appeared in series such as "NYPD Blue," "X Files" and "Matlock." Big screen credits include "Mud", "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", "Take Shelter", "The Blind Side", "Footloose", "Apollo 13", and "Bugsy".
As a filmmaker, in 2008, he produced and starred in the critically praised indie feature, "That Evening Sun", and garnered an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work as Lonzo Choat, opposite Hal Holbrook.
McKinnon has complemented his work in front of the camera with other notable turns as a writer, director and producer. He has frequently collaborated with his friend Walton Goggins and his late wife, actress Lisa Blount, under their Ginny Mule Pictures banner. Their debut film, the McKinnon-penned and titular played, "The Accountant", won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 2002. Their first feature, "Chrystal" (written and directed by McKinnon and starring Ms. Blount), was selected for the Sundance Film Festival's prestigious Dramatic Film Competition in 2004.
Family
Trivia
Co-owner of "Ginny Mules Pictures", along with partner Walton Goggins, a film and television production company.
As of 2017, he has appeared in four films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Bugsy (1991), Apollo 13 (1995) and The Blind Side (2009). Of those, Driving Miss Daisy (1989) is a winner in the category.
Personal Quotes
When I'm writing something and I'm really into it, that's all I can think about, and it becomes the most important thing in the world to me, and it may not be that, in reality.
I think I'm a better collaborator, in seeing the bigger picture and trying to just help that, and not be so self-centered in whatever my task is, which is being an actor.
With writing fiction, I'm either not courageous enough or just not suited for telling truths in a more conventional way. As an actor, I inhabit those characters as I'm writing them.
I love telling stories, whether I'm the human instrument that helps tell that story, or I'm the man behind the curtain.
All the collaborators of storytelling, in film and television, have to be partly self-centered because they need to do their work the best they can, and that's what makes them really good at what they do, but then they also have to be a part of the socialist society, for the greater good.
'Rectify' is un-busy. It might soothe you, if not distract you, from all you got going on.
Truth may be stranger than fiction on a plot and narrative basis, but fiction can investigate tone in a way that things based on a true story can't.
'Deadwood' was just a wonderful opportunity for me. Outside of my own things that I've written, I hadn't had the opportunity to play a character with that amount of depth and range.
