Mark Boal is an American journalist, screenwriter and film producer. Before he became a prominent figure of cinema, Boal worked as a journalist for such publications as Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and Playboy. Boal's 2004 article "Death and Dishonor" led to the film In the Valley of Elah (2007), which Boal also co-wrote. As a journalist, Boal was embedded with troops and bomb squads in 2004 during the Iraq War. He wrote an article about one of the bomb experts, Sergeant Jeffrey S. Sarver, in an article entitled "The Man in the Bomb Suit" which led him to write and produced The Hurt Locker (2009), for which he won both the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2012, he wrote and produced the controversial Zero Dark Thirty, teaming again w