Our Creative Connect speaker series brings impactful leaders from creative industries to share their career journeys and insights with the MSLCE program and the Northwestern community in intimate, conversational settings.
Ken Kwapis has been a motion picture and television director for four decades. He directed eleven feature films, among them
A Walk In The Woods,
Big Miracle,
He’s Just Not That Into You, and
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. His debut feature was
Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird, starring Jim Henson’s Muppets.
We Are The Shaggs, which had its world premiere at the 2026 SXSW Festival, is Kwapis’s first feature documentary. Kwapis helped launch nine television series, including
The Larry Sanders Show,
The Bernie Mac Show, and
The Office. He earned an Emmy nomination for directing the “Gay Witch Hunt” episode of
The Office. He also earned an Emmy nomination for his work as a producer-director of
Malcolm In the Middle.
Kwapis contributed episodes to such shows
Freaks and Geeks,
Parks and Recreation,
Santa Clarita Diet,
One Mississippi, and
The Paper. He directed the entire second season of
Space Force. Kwapis recently helmed the four-episode revival of
Malcolm In the Middle, starring the original cast members, including Bryan Cranston, Jane Kaczmarek, and Frankie Muniz.
He is currently prepping the feature
Thelma, based on the real-life story of the mother of John Kennedy Toole, author of
A Confederacy of Dunces. Toole died before his novel was published, and his mother Thelma spent over a decade trying to find a home for her son’s masterpiece.
In addition to his film and television work, Kwapis is the author of the memoir “But What I Really Want To Do is Direct” published by St. Martin’s Press. Kwapis studied filmmaking at Northwestern University and the University of Southern California. He won the Student Academy Award in Dramatic Achievement for his USC film
For Heaven’s Sake!, a contemporary adaptation of Mozart's one-act opera "Der Schauspieldirektor" ("The Impresario").
NOTE
The Northwestern Block Museum Cinema is screening Kwapis' new documentary
We Are the Shaggs on Wed., November 18th at 7PM. More details are on their
website.