CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Greg Mottola

American film director, screenwriter & television director (born 1964)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ1356738
Source-derived summary

Gregory J. Mottola (born July 11, 1964) is an American film director, screenwriter and television director.

Early life and education

Mottola grew up in Dix Hills, New York, in a Catholic family of Italian and Irish descent. He received his BFA in art from Carnegie Mellon University and MFA in film from Columbia University.

Career

He wrote and directed the 1996 independent film The Daytrippers, then concentrated for several years on directing in television for series such as Undeclared and Arrested Development.

He has also directed the feature films Superbad, Adventureland and Paul.

Adventureland (2009) is a "first love" story about a group of college-age kids working at an amusement park in the 1980s. The film starred Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. It premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and received critical praise.

He directed Paul, a science fiction/comedy film about two comic book nerds (played by the film's screenwriters Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) who meet an alien named Paul while vacationing in the US.

Later on, he returned to TV series, such as The Dangerous Book for Boys.

Personal life

Mottola is married to Sarah Allentuch and has three children.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Greg Mottola” as american film director, screenwriter & television director (born 1964). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Greg, Mottola and American.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1964, 1996, 2009—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1964-07-11. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Greg, Mottola and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Greg Mottola”, the useful work is to connect “american film director, screenwriter & television director (born 1964)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1356738. VIAF identifies the subject as 5139876. The Library of Congress control number is n00113750. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1996 and 2009.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Greg Mottola”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Greg Mottola primary sources, Greg Mottola archive and Greg research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Greg Mottola”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Greg Mottola” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.