John Buffalo Mailer is an award winning screenwriter, journalist, playwright, actor, and producer. In October of 2000 he founded Back House Productions in New York City with three other Wesleyan graduates,
including the TONY Award Winning Director for Hamilton, Thomas Kail. Back House became the 1st resident theater company of The Drama Bookshop's Arthur Seelan Theater in 2001, where they developed several plays including the 2008 TONY Award Winner for Best Musical, In The Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
John has been published in three books of collected essays, has published two plays, has had four feature screenplays produced, and has been an editor for four national magazines including the infamous High Times.
The New York Premiere of John's first play, Hello Herman, was Directed by Thomas Kail in 2002, and was published by Dramatists Play Services in the Spring of 2010 after the LA premiere. Smith and Krauss included an excerpt from Hello Herman in their Best Monologues of 2011 publication, and the feature film starring Norman Reedus was released in 2012, earning the screenplay the Social Relevance Award at the 2012 Monaco International Film Festival.
As an actor, he cut his teeth at The Actors Studio at the age of twelve and went on to perform in a dozen plays in New York City throughout the 2000's. As a screen actor, Buffalo has appeared opposite Shia LaBeouf in Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Paul Giamatti and Ellen Burstyn in Matthew Barney's River Of Fundament, Tony Sirico in Friends And Romans, Alec Baldwin, Demi Moore, and Dylan McDermott in Blind (which he also wrote), Sienna Miller in Private Life Of A Modern Woman. He starred in The Second Sun, American Terrorist, and DieRy (the second two of which he also wrote and produced), and in 2023 co-starred in Michelle Danner's Miranda's Victim opposite Abigail Breslin, Ryan Phillippe, Luke Wilson, Emily VanCamp, Andy Garcia, Josh Bowman, Kyle MacLachlan, and Donald Sutherland. In 2024, he executive produced the award-winning documentary How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer. He is married to the writer Olivia Rutigliano.
DieRy(2020)
American Terrorist(2020)
Blind(2016)
Hello Herman(2012)
Miranda's Victim(2023)as Andrew
The Madness Inside Me(2020)as Robert
The Second Sun(2018)as Max
How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer(2023)
In A Pickle(2020)
Justice w/Judge Jeanine(2011)as Self
Norman Mailer: The American(2010)as Self
I am Jane Doe(2017)as Self - Son of Village Voice Co-Founder Norman Mailer
