Duncan Roy

Duncan Roy has been writing and directing films for over two decades, beginning as a student at Bournemouth University‘s Poole School of Film and Television in the UK. Prior to becoming a filmmaker, he had already established himself in London as a successful producer of theater, writing and directing such plays as PORNOGRAPHY: A SPECTACLE (with Neil Bartlett), THE HOST, BAD BABY, THE BARON IN THE TREES, and CALL ME SUSAN.

Roy made his feature directorial debut at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival with AKA, an autobiographical account of his experience infiltrating London’s high society in the 1970’s. AKA played at numerous international film festivals, garnering many awards and a BAFTA nomination for the Carl Foreman Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Roy followed AKA with METHOD in 2004, starring Jeremy Sisto and Elizabeth Hurley, and THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY in 2006, a modern-day interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s classic horror novel.

Other films include: Clancy’s Kitchen and Jackson: My Life, Your Fault.

In 2009, Roy’s career took an unexpected turn when he joined the cast of SEX REHAB WITH DR. DREW on VH1, making for a most unlikely reality show participant. His blog, which follows his personal experience living in LA, receives an enormous amount of hits daily, and in 2010 was praised by Roger Ebert as “a moving and evocative chronicle of modern gay life.”

Roy has also written for numerous publications, including The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard, The Sydney Morning Herald, TheGuardian, and The Daily Beast.

Duncan sued LA County in 2015 and won a substantial financial settlement.

“My civil rights lawsuit arises from the fact that I was unlawfully held in the Los Angeles County jail for 85 days, in violation of my constitutional right to post bail. (I was a pretrial detainee and eligible to post bail yet the jail did not allow me to post bail). I was denied the opportunity to post bail because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had issued an immigration hold (sometimes referred to as an “ICE hold”). An immigration hold is a request from ICE to hold a detainee so that ICE can look into their immigration status; it doesn’t mean the person has violated immigration laws or even that ICE has probable cause to believe they’ve violated immigration laws. At the time of my arrest, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s department routinely denied bail to pretrial detainees with immigration holds, which is illegal under California and federal constitutional standards. Since the filing of my lawsuit, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department discontinued this practice and now permits pretrial detainees with ICE holds to post bail.”

Duncan Roy lives in Whitstable, UK