Jon Bokenkamp Bio, Family, Career, Movies, TV Shows and Net Worth

May 2024 · 5 minute read

Jon Bokenkamp Biography

Jon Bokenkamp is an American writer and producer popularly known for his work in writing the screenplay for Taking Lives, The Call, and creating the NBC series The Blacklist and The Blacklist: Redemption.

Jon Bokenkamp Birthday | Age

He was born in 1974 in Kearney, Nebraska. He is 45 years old as of 2019.

Jon Bokenkamp Family

He is the son of Tom and Sue Bokenkamp.

Jon Bokenkamp Wife

He is married to Kathy Bokenkamp.

Jon Bokenkamp Children

No information on Jon’s children is revealed to the public.

Jon Bokenkamp Educational Background

He was educated at Kearney High School and later at the University of Nebraska Kearney. He graduated in 1993. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Musical Arts from University of Nebraska Kearney May 3rd, 2019.

Jon Bokenkamp Career

A friend and fellow Nebraskan, Todd Nelson, creator of the Nebraska Coast Connection, urged Bokenkamp to join a scriptwriting contest. Jon landed an agent and his first paid task after winning the contest, rewriting a horror movie for Exorcist director Billy Friedkin.

Success has enabled Bokenkamp to return to his hometown where he won the 2013 Hub Freedom Award for his job on restoring the historic World Theater in downtown Kearney, Nebraska.

Jon Bokenkamp Movies And TV Shows

Jon Bokenkamp Net Worth

Bokenkamp has a net worth of $25 million.

Jon Bokenkamp Interview

‘The Blacklist’ creator Jon Bokenkamp tells his story of failure to success to graduating UNK students

Source: www.kearneyhub.com

KEARNEY — “Don’t get a job,” was Jon Bokenkamp’s “only” piece of advice to students graduating from the University of Nebraska at Kearney Friday.

Rather than “don’t work” or “don’t make money,” though, Bokenkamp encouraged the UNK graduates to chase down a dream.

The creator and executive producer of the hit television series “The Blacklist” gave the commencement address Friday morning at UNK, sharing wisdom with the more than 600 recent grads.

“Whatever you do next, this story you’re about to write, this dream that I pray you will chase down, man, you better love it,” Bokenkamp said. “You better love it so much that it is immune to the bills you’re going to have to pay and hours you’re going to have to work and what anyone considers to be realistic because it might not be realistic.”

To put context to his advice, Bokenkamp recounted his own career, and the seemingly unexpected success he found along the way.

While Bokenkamp attended UNK for a few years, he ended up getting a degree from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in 1995 in film production, which he then “swiftly used to earn a job at Universal Studios as a valet.”

During this time working a job that wasn’t necessarily in his chosen career path, or required the degree he had just earned, Bokenkamp said he treated writing like a career. During the time of day when he was not parking cars, he would write.

Eventually, he said he got a “promotion” to work at the Old Spaghetti Factory on Sunset Boulevard, after being fired as a valet.

“The point is, it took a lot for me to sort of ignore the temptation to do something more practical, something that might have been more sensible, a compromise. I’m glad I didn’t compromise, and you guys shouldn’t, either, even when this dream seems utterly impossible,” he told the graduates.

During the times in Bokenkamp’s life when he felt he was chasing something that wasn’t possible, he said he found solace in a quote from another screenwriter, William Goldman, writer of “The Princess Bride.”

Bokenkamp shared his advice with everyone at commencement, as well.

“Nobody knows anything,” Bokenkamp recounted from Goldman’s book, “Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting.” “Nobody knows what movie’s going to hit, what actress is going to win the Oscar, nobody knows what TV show’s going to explode. Nobody knows. So you have to believe in your story, whatever it is, and when people tell you it’s not going to happen, please remember William Goldman: Nobody knows anything.”

Taking this advice to heart, Bokenkamp kept believing in his own dream to make it as a Hollywood writer. He ended up writing screenplays such as “Bad Seed” and “Taking Lives.”

However, when he hit a dry spell in his career in the late 2000s, Bokenkamp and his wife, Kathy, decided to move back to Kearney — something they had always planned to do, wanting to raise their kids in Nebraska — where he ended up writing “The Blacklist,” now in its sixth season.

Living in Kearney, Nebraska ended up being a unique piece of Bokenkamp’s story, he said, and it’s something people always are surprised to learn about him.

“This thing is that this thing that I was mildly ashamed of, moving home, is actually what makes me unlike anyone else in Hollywood. Do you know how many TV writers there are in Kearney? That’s part of my story,” he said.

Bokenkamp encouraged the graduates to find what makes their stories unique, as they begin to write them.

“You are off to an incredible start, but it is just that: It is a start. It is a beginning. And it is time for you to go write your story. So, make it one that only you can tell, flaws and all,” he said. “And when people tell you you’re nuts, remember: Nobody knows anything.”

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