Howard Gutman

Despite being a full-time lawyer in Washington DC and then a U.S. diplomat, Howard Gutman has established a firm and growing footprint in media and Hollywood. He began his appearances as an actor by playing a lawyer for James Carville, Mary Matalin, Mary McCormack, John Slattery and Roger Guenveur Smith in three episodes of the George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh HBO series "K Street." Howard came onto the show initially as a consultant, giving advice to actors and the directors about work in Washington D.C. Upon explaining details of a certain scene, the director Stephen Soderberg suggested Howard act the scene himself because he knew so much about the field of work and might be the best to emulate it. The first appearance led to a 3 episode role and to Howard securing his Screen Actor's Guild membership. Based on his appearances in "K Street," Howard Gutman's next secured a role as Tim Robbins' lawyer in the movie "Noise," which starred William Hurt, Billy Baldwin and Bridget Moynihan in addition to Robbins " In the movie, Robbins plays a New Yorker who is being driven insane by the endless false car alarms blasting in New York City and decides to take matters into his own hands. He becomes at once a car-alarm vigilante and a folk hero. Despite Howard's best legal advice and defense, things do not go well. The movie was picked as Movie-of-the-Week by the L.A. Times. The appearance in Noise led to auditions for Howard for such popular television series as Boston Legal, Law and Oder, and Crossing Jordan. Though Howard Gutman had to put the appearances on hold upon becoming U.S. Ambassador (he was slated to play a judge in the Matthew McConaughey movie "The Lincoln Lawyer"), one of his more recent and perhaps most notable roles was in the 2009 movie "Fame", which was a remake of the 1970's popular movie. Produced by Lakeshore Productions, "Fame" celebrates the talents of students from the High School for the Performing Arts. Howard played the role of a butcher, the father to the high school's relentless photographer. The photographer, Howard's movie son, was played by Paul Iacono, the high school student in the series R.J. Berger. Although filmed before Howard became the United States Ambassador to the Belgium in July 2009, "Fame" premiered both in the United States and Belgium in October 2009, shortly after then Ambassador Gutman arrived in Belgium. A premier was held in Belgium - seen widely on Belgian television - with both Paul Iacono and Naturi Naughton coming to Belgium and performing for the opening. Howard Gutman also appears frequently as a political commentator on both television and radio, appearing most often during the 2008 Presidential campaign in support of then Senator Obama on Fox News. Howard has also been active behind the camera and microphone. In 2009, prior to becoming Ambassador, he partnered with producer Armyan Bernstein (former head of Beacon Pictures and Executive Producer of TV's "Castle") to sell a television series concept entitled "Powers & Price" to ABC and Howard sold a reality show to Pilgrim. Both projects were held up when Howard was named U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. In the same period, Howard assisted some new producers in setting up their studios in Hollywood.