Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, Jim Sheridan began his career at his father’s amateur theatre company, acting and eventually directing pieces by the age of 17. Sheridan studied acting while at University College Dublin and continued on this track when he and director Neil Jordan formed the Children’s T Company in 1973, a production company by which they introduced theatre to children throughout Ireland. In 1976, he and his brother Peter, a playwright, began an association with Dublin’s Project Arts Theatre where they staged a number of plays, including The Liberty Suit (1977). In 1981, Sheridan immigrated to New York City, where he became the artistic director of the New York Irish Arts Center. He left theater in 1987 to concentrate on filmmaking, enrolling in an eight-week course at New York University in 1988. He ended the 1980s moving back to Ireland and writing and directing his first feature film, My Left Foot (1989), beginning his first of three collaborations with Daniel Day-Lewis.
Sheridan has garnered numerous directing credits including The Field (1990), In the Name of the Father (1993), The Boxer (1997), In America (2002), Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2005), Brothers (2009), Dream House (2011), and The Secret Scripture (2016).
For his directorial efforts, Sheridan has received three Academy Award nominations, two Golden Globes nominations and two BAFTA Film Award nominations, among numerous others.
He served on the London Coordinating Committee from 2010-present. Sheridan has been a member of the DGA since 2003.