Writer-director Brian Helgeland graduated from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. After winning an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for L.A. Confidential (1997), Helgeland went on to write the Razzie-winning screenplay for The Postman (1997) (by allowing the organizers of the Razzies to present him with the award, he became only the fourth person in their history to accept one of their statuettes), as well as writing and directing his films A Knight's Tale (2001) and The Order (2003). He has worked with director Clint Eastwood twice, in 2002 on Blood Work, and in 2003 on Mystic River. He has also written an as yet unproduced adaptation of Moby Dick. In both A Knight's Tale and The Order, Helgeland worked with the same core group of actors: Heath Ledger, Shannyn Sossamon, and Mark Addy.