 Gavin O'Connor was raised in Huntington, New York, on Long Island.He wrote and produced Ted Demme's directorial debut, the short film "The Bet".Three years later, he made his own feature film co–writing and directing debut with "Comfortably Numb", about the moral dilemmas facing a Connecticut preppie-turned-New York City prosecutor; the film was screened at both the Cannes Film Festival and the Boston Film Festival.