Adam Simon

Adam Simon (born February 6, 1962) is an American director, producer, and screenwriter. His directing credits include Brain Dead (1990), Body Chemistry II: The Voice of a Stranger (1992), and Carnosaur (1993). Simon, along with producer Brannon Braga, co-created the television series Salem. As a screenwriter, Simon is known for Bones (2001), The Haunting in Connecticut (2009), and Books of Blood (2020).

Career
He plays a humorous version of himself, pitching a project and getting barred from the studio lot, in the famous opening-shot of Robert Altman's The Player (1992). He previously appeared, thinly veiled, as a fictional character in Christopher Guest's film The Big Picture (1989) and would reappear in Kim Newman's novel Johnny Alucard (2013), where he again pitches a project and becomes the only person in Hollywood standing up to a particularly sinister studio executive.

Kim Newman has noted that Adam Simon has "become one of the most oft-cited figures in contemporary Hollywood satire, and those in the know have begun to play the game of Simon-spotting. [...] Remarkable look- and act-alikes for Adam Simon have appeared in a couple of sinister Hollywood satires: Adam Rafkin (Jarrad Paul) on the cancelled-too-soon TV series Action, who ruins his emotional and physical health on successive drafts of Beverly Hills Gun Club for sleazy überproducer Peter Dragon (Jay Mohr); and Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, who finds his entire life - and film project - jeopardised when he considers going against the wishes of backers who represent either organised crime or Hell."