Sam Esmail (Egyptian Arabic: سام إسماعيل, born September 17, 1977) is an American screenwriter, film and television director and producer. He is best known as the writer and director of the television series Mr. Robot (2015–2019), starring Rami Malek. He directed the psychological thriller Homecoming, starring Julia Roberts, which premiered on Amazon Video in November 2018.\n', '

Esmail was born in 1977 to an Egyptian family in Hoboken, New Jersey. His family is Muslim. His family later moved to South Carolina, where, he said, "I used to hold Stanley Kubrick film festivals at my house in high school. These are not cool things. Back in my day, those are things that you would get beaten up for," adding, "When you\'re a funny-looking Egyptian growing up in Jersey and South Carolina, it kind of gets rough." The family eventually moved back to Sewell, New Jersey, in Gloucester County\'s Washington Township.\n', '

Esmail acquired his first computer when he was nine and began writing his own code a few years later. While attending New York University, he worked in its computer lab before being put on academic probation for an incident there. After graduating from that college\'s Tisch School of the Arts, Esmail pursued a Master of Fine Arts degree from the AFI Conservatory.\n', '

Return to Sam Esmail Autograph Profile