David Benioff

David Benioff was born and raised in New York City. His family is Jewish and he is the youngest of three children. He attended The Collegiate School and Dartmouth College, graduating in 1992. He held several odd jobs after graduation including a club bouncer in San Francisco and a high school English teacher and wrestling coach in Brooklyn, NY. He attended grad school twice, first at Trinity College Dublin in 1995 for Irish literature and then at UC Irvine for a MFA in creative writing. He completed his first novel, The 25th Hour, as his thesis at Irvine. It was later made into a film directed by Spike Lee. In addition to City of Thieves, his second novel, Benioff has written several screenplays including Troy (2004), The Kite Runner (2007), and most notably X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). While studying in Dublin, Benioff met D.B. Weiss, with whom he began adapting George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels for television in 2006. The adapted series Game of Thrones premiered on HBO in 2011 and has won numerous awards, including 38 Primetime Emmy awards and a Peabody Award. Benioff married actress Amanda Peet in 2006 and they have three children together. The family splits time between homes in Manhattan and Beverly Hills.