Michael Zelniker

Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada to Seymour and Dorothy Zelniker. After graduating from Dawson College's Conservatory Acting School (Dome Theatre), Zelniker re-located to Toronto where he began working in many of Canada's finest theaters, including the National Arts Centre, the St. Lawrence Centre, Manitoba Theatre Centre, the Neptune Theatre, Toronto Free Theatre, Factory Theatre Lab, the Globe Theatre and Bathurst Street Theatre. Plays performed in include "American Buffalo", "Henry V", "Mother Courage", "Streamers", "Total Eclipse" and "Stepdance". Zelniker's favorite theatre role is Mozart in "Amadeus" which he performed at the Wool Warehouse Theatre in New Mexico. As his movie and television career began taking off, Zelniker moved to Los Angeles appearing in more than 20 feature films and countless times on television. Some noteworthy starring roles are Red Rodney in Clint Eastwood's "Bird", Allen Ginsberg in David Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch" and James Bertram Collip in PBS's "Glory Enough For All". He starred opposite Robert Duvall in "The Terry Fox Story", for which he won a Canadian Academy Award (Genie Award), with John Malkovich and Kevin Bacon in "Queen's Logic" and with Christopher Plummer in the ABC mini-series "Crossings". Guest starring on series television such as "Murder She Wrote", "Chicago Hope", "Millennium", "Profiler", "In the Heat of the Night" and "Dead Zone". Zelniker co-wrote, produced and starred in the festival award winning feature, "Stuart Bliss". He also co-wrote, produced, and directed the low budget experimental feature, "Falling...", which won the 2012 Best of Festival Award at Indie Fest USA International Film Festival. While working on a series of one act plays at the Coast Playhouse in Los Angeles, he met Dea Lawrence, leading to their getting married two years later. Their company, Aion Pictures, produces movies and theatre. From 2013-2018, Zelniker taught Acting for Film and Technique at the New York Film Academy (NYFA), after teaching and directing at AMDA, College and Conservatory for the Performing Arts from 2004 - 2013. As a lifetime environmentalist, in August 2018, Zelniker proudly joined Al Gore's Climate Reality Project's Leadership Corps serving as the Los Angeles Chapter Co-Chair for 2.5 years. "The Issue with Tissue - a boreal love story", a feature documentary about the boreal forest and the Indigenous Peoples who call it home, that Zelniker wrote, produced, directed, shot and edited, played in theaters and at film festivals across North America throughout 2023. It was recognized as a finalist for Best Documentary at Next Generation Indie Film Awards and as the Audience Choice Award Runner-up at Cinefest Sudbury International Film Festival. The five hour series will be released in early 2025. During 2024 Zelniker traveled to 20 countries over 185 days gathering stories for a new documentary about the world-wide water crisis. Titled "The Struggle for Mother Water", it is scheduled to be released in late 2025.