Lynda Obst

Lynda Rosen Obst (born April 14, 1950) is an American feature film producer and author.

Obst is a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, California and then studied Philosophy in the graduate program at Columbia University. Later she worked as an editor at The New York Times before moving to Los Angeles with her then-husband David Obst. Starting at The Geffen Film Company as a d-girl, her first major project was developing the scripts that would eventually become Flashdance.

Obst partnered with Debra Hill in 1986. The partnership would go on to produce Adventures in Babysitting, Heartbreak Hotel and The Fisher King, among other projects. Following The Fisher King (1991), Obst and Hill parted ways; she became an in-studio producer going on to produce such notable films as Sleepless in Seattle, One Fine Day, Someone Like You, Contact and The Siege.

In 1989, Obst founded the production company Lynda Obst Productions under license of Columbia Pictures, but moved it to 20th Century Fox in 1993.

In 2009, Obst completed principal photography as producer on the Ricky Gervais–Matthew Robinson co-writing and directing debut, The Invention of Lying (originally titled "This Side of the Truth"), starring Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner. The film was released in October 2009. She was also the producer of Gurinder Chadha's Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, released by Nickelodeon in 2008. In 2014, Obst collaborated with director Christopher Nolan to co-produce Interstellar, a science-fiction drama starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway. This marked the first time her production company, Lynda Obst Productions, was credited for a production.

Obst is the author of the memoir Hello, He Lied (1996), which details her experiences in the modern studio system. She was one of the central figures in the battle over the Richard Preston article Crisis in the Hot Zone. Rick Rosen, one of the founders of the Endeavor talent agency, is Obst's younger brother.

Lynda Obst Productions is an American film and television production company founded by Lynda Obst. She formed the company in 1989 and moved it to Columbia Pictures. In 1993, her company moved to 20th Century Fox. While Obst has producer credits for films from the 1980s to present, Interstellar was the first to display her company banner.

Film and television

• Interstellar (2014) – film
• Good Girls Revolt (2015–2016) – television
• The Hot Zone (2019) – television

• The Sixties (Random House: New York, NY, 1978. ISBN 978-0394732398)
• Dirty Dreams: A Novel (New Amer Library Trade: New York, NY, 1990. ISBN 0-453-00731-7)
• Hello, He Lied (Little, Brown & Company: New York, NY, 1996. ISBN 0-316-62211-7)
• Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business (Simon & Schuster: New York, NY, 2013. ISBN 978-1476727745)