Clayton Townsend
Clayton Townsend is a longtime veteran producer for film and executive producer for television. He was recently named as an Emmy nominee for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series 2024 as Executive Producer of the Netflix limited series “Ripley” based on the Patricia Highsmith book “The Talented Mr Ripley “Ripley” garnered a total of 13 Emmy nominations. In addition, recently won the Directors Guild Award along with Steven Zaillian for best directed limited series for “Ripley” in 2024.
His longtime collaborations with high-profile directors have made Townsend a much in-demand producer with an enviable roster of award winning film credits. He remains one of the film industry’s most respected and hands-on creative producers, shepherding a diverse range of motion pictures to the screen.
He just completed producing director Justin Lin’s upcoming independent feature entitled “Last Days” which is based on a true story of Christian Missionary John Allen Chau that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2025.
Townsend has also produced 3 of the global blockbuster Fast & Furious films. “F9-The Fast Saga” marks Townsend’s third contribution to the series which has a generated a $5 billion worldwide box office. He previously teamed up with director Justin Lin and producer Neal H. Moritz on “Fast & Furious 6” and “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”.Townsend also produced “The Equalizer 3” directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Denzel Washington for Sony Pictures which was filmed entirely on location in Italy. This is a social justice issue that inspires her to leave things in a better place than where she found it.
His twelve-year tenure with director Oliver Stone generated some of the Academy Award winning director’s most highly-regarded films, including “Any Given Sunday”, “U Turn”, “Nixon”, “Natural Born Killers”, “JFK”, “Heaven & Earth”, “The Doors”, “Born on the Fourth of July” and“Talk Radio”. He also produced the Netflix hit “Bird Box”, starring Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes and John Malkovich.
In an enduring relationship with celebrated writer/director/producer Judd Apatow, Townsend produced “This Is 40”, “Bridesmaids”, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”, “Knocked Up”, “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”, “Year One” and “Funny People”.
Townsend also produced Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken”, adapted from Laura Hillenbrand’s bestselling book. The film garnered three Academy Award nominations and a place on AFI’s Top Ten Films of the Year. Additional producing credits include “Holmes and Watson”, “Zoolander 2”, “People Like Us”, “The Skeleton Key”, “Bad Company”, “The Blackout”, “Where’s Marlowe?” and “Heartbreakers”.