Bruce Cohen
National Medal of Arts recipient Bruce Cohen with President and First Lady Biden. Photo courtesy of White House
Bio
Bruce Cohen is an Academy Award- and Tony Award-winning producer of film, television, theater, and live events. He won an Academy Award for Best Picture for American Beauty and earned additional Best Picture nominations for Milk and Silver Linings Playbook. He is currently serving, along with Lady Gaga, as co-chair of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Last year, Cohen was a producer of Netflix's Rustin, directed by George C. Wolfe, executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama and starring Colman Domingo. This year, he is a producer of The Great Lillian Hall, starring the award-winning actress Jessica Lange, for HBO and Zoe Kravitz's directorial debut, Blink Twice, starring Namie Ackie and Channing Tatum, for Amazon MGM. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for producing the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. In television, he also executive produced Pushing Daisies and, for First Lady Michelle Obama, Broadway at the White House. He produced both the feature film and Broadway musical versions of Big Fish, won the Tony for Best Play in 2020 for co-producing Matthew Lopez's The Inheritance, and was Tony nominated for co-producing Jeremy O. Harris's Slave Play. Cohen is a graduate of Yale University, began his film career as the DGA Trainee on Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple, and lives in New York City with his husband and daughter.
White House citation:
For championing the arts to express our highest ideals of freedom, justice, and equality. An entertainment industry icon ahead of his time, Bruce Cohen has produced our biggest moments on screen and stage by lifting up people and stories that need to be seen and heard, making real the promise of America for all Americans.
As a producer of film, television, and theater and responsible for shepherding new works of art into the world, I have been blessed to experience firsthand the transformative power of the arts to enlighten, to inspire, and to change hearts and minds. The opportunity to witness the singular ability of the arts and humanities to create conversations around societal change continues to fuel my desire to support cultural work in this country in any and every way that I can. In 2023, I was afforded both the honor and opportunity of a lifetime when I was appointed by President Biden, along with Lady Gaga, to co-chair the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Over the past year and a half, it has been our extraordinary privilege to work alongside the First Lady and partner with key federal agencies, among them, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to help create exciting new initiatives with long-ranging impact. I am as thrilled and humbled to receive the National Medal of the Arts as I am proud of my brilliant co-chair, our exceptional executive director, and my gifted fellow members of the President’s Committee and its staff. I share this honor with them and with our partners across the country who join us in supporting the arts and humanities’ continuing ability to foster resilience, connection and joy.