Women Behind the Scenes Spotlight: Bronwen Hughes

Today’s Women Behind the Scenes spotlight is shone on TV and film director Bronwen Hughes.

Bronwen was born and raised in Toronto. She originally wanted to be a journalist, but she decided to study film and photography, graduating from the Department of Film at York University.

Some of her early work was on the 1985 mini-series Anne of Green Gables; working as a director on the Amy Grant video “Lucky One” as well as the documentary Amy Grant: Building the House of Love; working on various TV commercials among a few other projects.

It was her work with the Canadian comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall in 1994 that caught Hollywood’s eye. She was offered the chance to direct a million dollar feature film comedy, but she pulled out at the last minute, opting instead to direct the 1996 box office film Harriet the Spy. She was then invited by none other than Steven Spielberg to make a movie for his production company DreamWorks.

After looking at several scripts, Bronwen chose the 1999 romantic comedy Forces of Nature. The following year she was the Executive Producer on the Penelope Cruz romance Woman on Top and then she was the director (and music supervisor) on the 2003 movie Stander, based on true events and shot in South Africa, which starred Thomas Jane. The movie debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and then went on to play at the Sundance Film Festival.

Since 2006 through 2017 she has been a director on the TV shows The L Word, Breaking Bad, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, White Collar, Hung, Fairly Legal, Motive, Stalker, The Mysteries of Laura, Black Box, Teen Wolf, Allegiance, Shut Eye, Damien, Hawaii Five-0, Queen of the South, 24: Legacy and The Good Doctor.

In 2016, she wrote and director the film The Journey Is the Destination about 22-year-old Dan Eldon, one of the youngest photographic stringers in Africa who was chased down and killed by an angry mob in Somalia.

Her latest directorial work has been on the third season of the EPIX spy drama Berlin Station and the second season of the FOX medical drama The Resident.

Bronwen lives in Los Angeles.

Check out our other Women Behind the Scenes Spotlights.