Academy Award winning writer-director-producer Adam McKay will be honored at the Santa Monica event on March 24, 2022 – the Thursday before the Academy Awards. J.J. Abrams will resume his annual role as emcee.

McKay’s upcoming work is the much-anticipated Netflix comedy Don’t Look Up, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio. Don’t Look Up tells the story of two low-level astronomers who must go on a giant media tour to warn of an approaching comet that will destroy Earth. The film will open in select theaters on December 10, 2021 and will be available on Netflix from December 24, 2021.

Announcing the first honoree, in what is the 16th year of the popular event, Trina Vargo, founder and president of the US-Ireland Alliance noted that, “We’re thrilled to be honoring Adam. A great storyteller, of course he’s Irish. On the maternal side of his family, Adam has roots in Cork, and his paternal side are from Tyrone, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. He even has a home in Ireland.”

McKay’s 2018 feature Vice, starring Christian Bale and Amy Adams, went on to receive many accolades including eight Academy Award nominations, six Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, and a DGA nomination for McKay. The WGA honored McKay with the Paul Selvin Award that recognizes a script that best embodies the spirit of the constitutional and civil rights and liberties. In 2015, McKay and Charles Randolph adapted Michael Lewis’s New York Times best-selling book, The Big Short. Starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt, the film went on to receive much critical acclaim as well as Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture and won the 2016 PGA for Best Picture. McKay earned Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Director, and he and Randolph won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards, BAFTA, WGA and USC Scripter Awards.

Recent film work includes his role as an executive producer on Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut Booksmart (2019), Netflix’s hit show Dead to Me (2019), starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, and writer director Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers (2019), starring Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu. Upcoming film projects include The Menu, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult and Ralph Fiennes from director Mark Mylod for Searchlight Pictures; FRESH, starringDaisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan from director Mimi Cave with a screenplay from Lauryn Kahn; and Bad Blood that will tell the story of Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes with Jennifer Lawrence starring.

For television, McKay serves as an executive producer on the critically acclaimed HBO show Succession. McKay directed the pilot for which he won the 2018 DGA Award for Drama Series. The show won the 2019 BAFTA for Best International Series and the 2020 EMMY and Golden Globe for Best Drama Series. Upcoming television projects include the previously announced HBO drama series Untitled Lakers Project, and a limited series based on Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown’s book about Jeffrey Epstein. In addition, McKay and Bong Joon Ho are partnering to develop an HBO limited series inspired by Bong Joon Ho’s Academy Award Best Picture Parasite.

McKay’s production company, Hyperobject Industries, has a wide-ranging focus from comedies, dramas, horror, documentaries, and documentary-series, as well as politically charged and challenging subjects with which McKay has become synonymous. Hyperobject Industries develops original podcasts, including Death at the Wing which McKay hosted, and Broken: Seeking Justice with Sony Music Entertainment’s Three Uncanny Four Productions. McKay also executive produced HBO documentaries Q: Into the Storm and 537 VOTES from Billy Corden and Alfred Spellman as well as Painting with John, the unscripted series, created by musician, painter and actor John Lurie.

McKay made his name in the comedy world as a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade. In 1995, McKay and Will Ferrell happened to start on the same day at Saturday Night Live, where he became Head Writer. McKay and Ferrell’s time at SNL led to collaborations that established their unique absurdist style on the now classic Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) followed by the hit Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006). McKay has consistently entertained audiences with a string of movies, including Step Brothers (2008), The Other Guys (2010) and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013). He has also produced numerous others including hits Get Hard (2015), Daddy’s Home (2015) and Daddy’s Home 2 (2017), and independent titles such as Welcome to Me (2015).