LIZ PATRICK
Living in Seoul, South Korea, with her expat father, and having just lost her mother to cancer, teenage Liz Patrick found comfort in pop culture. “TV, film, and music became my refuge while I was trying not to feel isolated in a foreign country,” she remembers. Though Patrick inherited her dad’s love of photography, she soon picked up another type of camera. “One day I borrowed my neighbor’s camcorder and started to make videos of Korea, so I could share my experience with my friends from home,” she says. “Slowly those films became comedy sketches.” After making many short films at Boston University, Patrick reached out to alumni for career guidance and landed her first job at MTV. She’s now a primetime Emmy nominee and Directors Guild of America award winner who has directed thousands of hours of television, including live multi-camera shows, concerts, awards shows, sketch comedy, and red carpet specials. In 2008, Patrick became director of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, a gig that lasted 13 seasons and over 2,000 episodes, and which earned Patrick nine Daytime Emmy awards, including three for direction. Her current gig is at the helm of Saturday Night Live—only the fifth director, and second female director, in the show’s 47 years. “I really enjoy bringing a project to life, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I have gotten,” says Patrick. “I’ve worked and continue to work with so many talented people. I love what I do, and I’m currently in a ‘pinch me’ moment here at SNL.”
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