McG

Joseph McGinty "McG" Nichol (born August 9, 1968), is an American film director, film and television producer, and former record producer. He began his career in the music industry, directing music videos and producing various albums. He later rose to prominence with his first film, Charlie's Angels, which had the highest-grossing opening weekend for a directorial debut at the time. Since then, he has directed four other films, including Charlie's Angels sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Terminator Salvation, co-created the cult television series Fastlane and has executive produced numerous television programs, such as The O.C., Chuck, and Supernatural. McG also owns a production company, Wonderland Sound and Vision, founded in 2001, which has overseen the production of the films and television shows he has worked on since Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. --- Joseph McGinty Nichol was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and grew up in Newport Beach, California. Because his uncle and grandfather were also named Joe, his mother nicknamed him McG to avoid confusion, which has stuck with him since the day he was born. He had a brother and his father owned a company that tested drugs for pharmaceutical firms. McG attended Corona del Mar High School, where he met Mark McGrath, initially wanting to become the lead singer of a band he formed with McGrath. However, he failed as a front man and persuaded McGrath to take over, working behind the scenes as producer and marketer for the band, which later scored several hit singles as Sugar Ray. By the age of 22, after he went to UC Irvine and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree for psychology, Sugar Ray signed onto a label and began touring. Around the time, McG worked as a still photographer, shooting local bands and musicians. This led him to form a record label known as G Recordings in 1993. In 1995, McG produced Sugar Ray's first album and co-wrote several songs on their second, including their smash hit "Fly." His music career included directing over fifty music videos such as Smash Mouth's 'All Star', The Offspring's 'Pretty Fly', Basement Jaxx's 'Where's Your Head At?', and directing documentaries on Korn and Sugar Ray. In 1997, he was awarded the Billboard's Pop Video of the Year Award for Smash Mouth's 'Walking on the Sun' and the Music Video Production Association's Pop Video of the Year Award for Sugar Ray's 'Fly.' Eventually, this landed him in the television commercial business, directing advertisements for Major League Baseball and Coca-Cola. A notable one was a commercial for Gap, which was honored at the 1999 London International Film Festival. --- Impressed with McG's music videos, Drew Barrymore approached him about directing a Charlie's Angels film. He accepted, wanting to take on bigger projects, and pitched the movie to the studio executives, who were initially reluctant but later approved the project after much persistence. The film, for which he was paid $350,000, was released in 2000 and went on to gross over $250 million worldwide with mixed critical reception from critics and fans alike. However, he won the Hollywood Breakthrough Award at the 6th Annual Hollywood Film Festival held in 2002. Proving himself to be quite bankable, Sony paid him $2.5 million to helm Dreadnought for Red Wagon Entertainment, a military action-drama following the captain of a small ship as he attempts to save the survivors of a shot-down commercial airliner and evade the captain of the Dreadnought, a technologically advanced and heavily armed ship, that tries to cover up the incident. He was also set to develop a sequel to Charlie's Angels and present his film producing debut with Airshow, the latter of which has yet to be made. --- He has suffered from agoraphobia and aerophobia, notably refusing to board a plane going to Australia to shoot Superman: Flyby and subsequently being dropped from the film. His brother died of a cocaine overdose in 2007, which he says has kept his life grounded and reminds him not to take it for granted. He and actress Bridget Moynahan began dating in late 2010, after having met on an airplane.