Joshua Astrachan

Who is Joshua Astrachan?

For the better part of a decade, Joshua Astrachan was a producer for the American film director, Robert Altman,. He produced Altman’s last film, A Prairie Home Companion, written by Garrison Keillor and starring Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson and Kevin Kline.

Astrachan also produced The Company, Altman’s narrative feature set in the world of dance, starring Neve Campbell, James Franco, Malcolm McDowell and the company members of the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. He co-produced the critically acclaimed, Academy Award-winning and seven-time Oscar-nominated Gosford Park starring, among others, Maggie Smith, Clive Owen, Kelly Macdonald, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jeremy Northam, Emily Watson and Bob Balaban. For Gosford Park, Altman received the Golden Globe and New York Film Critics Circle Award as Best Director.

In 2007, Astrachan founded LOCOMOTIVE, a film and television production company, with producing partner Lucy Barzun Donnelly. The first film to go out under the LOCOMOTIVE banner, produced by Ms. Donnelly and Rachael Horovitz, was Grey Gardens, the critically acclaimed feature for HBO, starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore. Grey Gardens won 6 Primetime Emmy Awards alongside two Golden Globes and the Producer’s Guild, Broadcast Film Critics Association and Television Critics Association Awards for the best motion picture made for television. Also with LOCOMOTIVE, Astrachan produced Jennifer Westfeldt’s celebrated ensemble comedy Friends with Kids, starring Westfeldt, Adam Scott, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Chris O’Dowd, Maya Rudolph, Megan Fox and Edward Burns. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and was theatrically released by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions in March, 2012. The film was named by New York Magazine’s film critic, David Edelstein, as one of the 10 best films of 2012.