Marielle Heller is an American director, writer, and actor. She is the writer and director of the feature film The Diary of a Teenage Girl and the director of Can You Ever Forgive Me?. She studied theatre at UCLA and then at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Additionally, she was honored with a Lynn Auerbach Screenwriting Fellowship and The Maryland Film Festival Fellowship. The Diary of a Teenage Girl was Heller`s debut film, that she both wrote and directed. It is based on the 2002 graphic novel titled The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures by Phoebe Gloeckner, which she received as a Christmas present from her sister in 2006. Heller`s writing credits include pilots for ABC and 20th Century Fox, and multiple screenplays and theatrical plays, including a pilot for ABC`s The Big Apple and a movie for Disney, titled Renegade X. She directed the Oscar Award Winning actor Tom Hanks in the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.