Paris Barclay is one of television’s most successful and honored directors. Throughout his career in television, Paris has directed nearly 200 episodes of television, including episodes of NYPD BLUE, ER, THE WEST WING, LOST, THE GOOD WIFE, CSI, SONS OF ANARCHY, HOUSE, GLEE, IN TREATMENT, SCANDAL, MONSTER, AMERICAN HORROR STORY, and DOCTOR ODYSSEY. He won two Emmy Awards for his direction of NYPD BLUE and has received six additional Emmy nominations for producing and directing, including three for directing episodes of GLEE, and one for THE WEST WING.
Paris has also garnered ten Directors Guild nominations (for shows as diverse as IN TREATMENT, WEEDS, HOUSE, as well as GLEE and THE WEST WING), winning once for NYPD BLUE. He also became the first Director in the history of the Guild to receive a comedy and drama nomination in the same year, two years in a row (2008 & 2009). He’s received three NAACP Image Awards, for producing, co-creating, and directing CITY OF ANGELS, and for directing COLD CASE and SMASH. In 2014, the NAACP inducted Paris into the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame.
Paris also began serving as a producer/director on many of the above shows, beginning with NYPD BLUE and continuing with COLD CASE, IN TREATMENT, SONS OF ANARCHY, PITCH, and more recently STATION 19 and DOCTOR ODYSSEY.
He directed the feature film (and cult favorite) DON’T BE A MENACE TO SOUTH CENTRAL WHILE DRINKING YOUR JUICE IN THE HOOD, as well as telefilms for HBO, THE CHEROKEE KID (starring Sinbad, James Coburn and Burt Reynolds) and THE BIG TIME for TNT (a drama with Christina Hendricks, Molly Ringwald, and Christopher Lloyd).
Further bulging his shelves, Paris has been recognized as a writer as well, receiving a WGA and Humanitas Prize nomination for his telefilm (with Dustin Lance Black) PEDRO, for MTV. He’s shared two Humanitas Prizes and four prestigious Peabody Awards. He co-created the series CITY OF ANGELS (which ran for 2 years on CBS), co-wrote and directed the pilot, HATE, for Showtime, and has rewritten projects for Disney and HBO.
Paris was elected President of the Director’s Guild of America in June 2013. He is the first African-American and openly gay President in the history of the Guild. Before being elected President, Paris served four terms as the First Vice President of the DGA. Mr. Barclay first joined the DGA in 1992, and was elected to the Western Directors Council and the National Board in 1997. He and Taylor Hackford shared the 2007 Robert Aldrich Award, given for extraordinary service to the Director’s Guild of America. Paris was enthusiastically re-elected in June 2015 to serve a second term as president before stepping down in June 2017. He helped develop and coordinates the DGA's First Time Director Orientation, which now numbers nearly 1,000 DGA members as graduates.
In 2021, the Guild presented Paris with its Honorary Life Member Award, one of the DGA’s highest honors, for his service to the Guild and career achievement. He was also elected in 2021 to serve as the Guild's Secretary-Treasurer, a position he still holds.
In late 2024, Paris had 6 episodes premiere on 3 different shows. He directed two episodes of the new Ryan Murphy series for FX/HULU: AMERICAN SPORTS STORY: AARON HERNANDEZ, as well as two episodes of the second season of MONSTER, this time MONSTERS:THE LYLE AND ERIK MENENDEZ STORY with Javier Bardem and Chloe Sevigny. He directed the pilot and currently executive produces Ryan Murphy’s new ABC series, DOCTOR ODYSSEY, starring Joshua Jackson and Don Johnson. The pilot he directed premiered in September and was ABC’s most watched premiere episode in 5 years, pulling in 16 million viewers in its first month.
His first feature documentary, BILLY PRESTON: THAT’S THE WAY GOD PLANNED IT (featuring Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Billy Porter, and Olivia Harrison) premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March 2024 and is currently making the festival rounds, most recently screening at DOC NYC.
Along with his industry honors, Paris has been recognized for his creative, humanitarian and political work by the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, the Innocence Project, Project Angel Food, and the Aviva Family and Children Services organization. He has lectured on directing at UCLA, USC, UC Santa Barbara, Columbia College, Arizona State University and Harvard College, Medical and Divinity Schools.
The proud parent of two adopted boys with his husband Christopher. His motto is: “What is the point of success if you don’t give back?”