Edward Burns

Burns got his start in the film industry right after college as a production assistant on the Oliver Stone film, The Doors. While working as a gofer at Entertainment Tonight, he financed, produced, directed and starred in his first film The Brothers McMullen in his spare time, which was largely shot in his hometown of Valley Stream. Once he completed the film, he was able to get a copy to Robert Redford after an ET junket interview for Quiz Show at the Rhiga Royal Hotel in Manhattan. In 1996, Burns wrote, directed and starred in the ensemble drama She's The One with Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz and Amanda Peet, as well as Sidewalks of New York in 2001.

His film Purple Violets premiered exclusively on iTunes on November 20, 2007. Burns began a string of guest appearances on the HBO original series Entourage midway through season 3, as well as appearing as Grace Adler's boyfriend in Will & Grace. In Entourage Burns plays himself and is (within the context of the series) writing a new TV series in which Johnny Drama is able to land a part. In 2007, Burns announced plans to partner with Virgin Comics to create a series entitled Dock Walloper. Burns plans to use the comic series as a springboard to a film of the same story.

In March 2009, The Lynch Pin, a series of shorts starring, written and directed by Burns were released via the internet. The ten episodes are only available to view online as of August 2009 and future plans for the project are unknown.

With the modest success of Purple Violets, Burns was considering taking a studio directing assignment to make money. After reading a few scripts and taking a few meetings, he chose to remain a writer/director. He then wrote Nice Guy Johnny and shot it quickly, on the RED One camera, for a reported $25,000 with a small crew. Nice Guy Johnny premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010.

To coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011, Burns wrote a movie, Newlyweds, that he also directed and starred in. Following a model similar to Nice Guy Johnny, Newlyweds was shot on the Canon 5D, with an even smaller crew, for $9000 in 12 days. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011 as the closing night film. He claimed on Twitter that the $9,000 budget broke out to "5k for actors, 2k insurance, 2k food and drink. 9k in the can." In 2013 Burns starred as real-life gangster Bugsy Siegel in Frank Darabont's miniseries, Mob City.

In 2012, Burns set up a screenwriting contest with the web startup Scripped for a crowdsourced screenplay which he intended to help get produced.