On the first day of his first job ever in Hollywood, Phil Pirrello shared a donut with Steven Spielberg.

Not bad for a kid from Erie, PA who moved to L.A. with bins full of Star Trek and Soderbergh DVDs to become a WGA TV and features writer of character-first sci-fi and spy dramas with big emotional stakes. Before selling his first TV show to Sony/Crackle — the spy thriller Assets — Phil wrote on Crackle’s Chosen, starring Milo Ventimiglia.

In 2020, Phil was a Finalist in Disney/ABC’s TV Writing Fellowship. Prior to that, he earned an MFA in Screenwriting at Chapman University while working at Paramount Pictures’ Interactive Marketing group on such films as (ironically) Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and Mission: Impossible III. That led to a career as an entertainment journalist for IGN and The Hollywood Reporter, which opened doors to develop TV shows and movies with Kennedy/Marshall, Warner Bros., DC Comics, Star Trek’s Jonathan Frakes and the late John Singleton.