Roger Nygard

Early life

Roger Nygard was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and grew up along the shores of Lake Minnetonka. His father, Roger Nygard, Sr., was an executive at General Mills in charge of buying the trainloads of grain used to make Wheaties and Cheerios. Nygard graduated from Orono High School, and received a Bachelor of Arts in Speech-Communications from the University of Minnesota in 1984.

Career

Nygard has worked in film and television as a director, writer, producer and editor. He made his foray into the movie world in 1991 when he directed the low budget indie feature, High Strung, starring Steve Oedekerk, Fred Willard, Denise Crosby, Thomas Wilson, Jani Lane and Jim Carrey. The film's tagline was: "The story of a guy with a few too many hang ups." The movie has achieved cult status.

Television and film directing and editing credits followed like Back to Back.

Trekkies was the first project to allow Nygard to explore his interest in human nature; people dressing up as fictional characters and extraterrestrials fascinated him. His partner in the project, Denise Crosby, first pitched Nygard the idea. He said, "I couldn't believe nobody had done it yet, it seemed so obvious." Trekkies has been described as "affectionate, nonjudgmental" (Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety), "terrifying, unsettling" (National Post), depending on who you ask. He also produced and edited a compelling and offbeat look at UFO enthusiasts (which included writer Whitley Streiber, and nuclear-physicist/ufologist Stanton T. Friedman) called Six Days in Roswell. The film was called "...pants-peeing funny!" by Film Threat magazine. The car salesman subculture also fascinated Nygard, and he co-wrote (with Joe Yannetty) and directed the outrageous cult favorite, Suckers. The movie stars Louis Mandylor, Lori Loughlin, and Daniel Benzali as one scary sales manager from hell. Suckers is often used as a training film at car dealerships. The Minneapolis Star Tribune said, "...Roger Nygard's exhilaratingly cynical car salesman film Suckers has the macho punch of a David Mamet drama."

While tackling feature interests like Trekkies 2 and sometimes lending support to a colleague's project as an editor or producer, Nygard has directed or edited for an array of television series like The Mind of the Married Man, The Bernie Mac Show, The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Zoey 101 and Zeke and Luther, as well as directing commercials for such companies as Kia, Boost Mobile, Disney XD, CBS, TBS, and others.

After exploring the phenomenon of Star Trek fans in the acclaimed documentary Trekkies, Nygard took on The Nature of Existence, traveling the globe to the source of the world's philosophies, religions, and belief systems, interviewing spiritual leaders, scholars, scientists, artists and others.

In the media

November 2011, Nygard was awarded the grand prize from the Portland Humanist Film Festival for his film The Nature of Existence.

Interviewed for the Oh No, Ross and Carrie! podcast Sept 2011, Nygard discusses his experience with acupuncture while traveling in China. He states that he is skeptical about anything that can't be measured, saying "how do you measure a life force?" After the release of his movie The Nature of Existence, he reported that people constantly ask about his personal belief in a God. He first asks for a definition of the term, saying people tend to have different meanings for God. He told Ross and Carrie that he is open to the evidence of a supreme being but has not seen it yet.