Adam Davenport was born and raised in the south burbs of Chicago, Illinois. At age fifteen, Davenport wrote a short story titled "Home" which was published in the anthology Looking Inward, for which he was presented with an Award of Achievement by former President George Bush, Sr. in 1999. In the spring of 2003, he created the production company Bulldog Productions in response to the lack of filmmaking opportunities at Yale.
Davenport's short film Midnight Son (2007), which he made as his thesis project while an undergraduate at Yale University, became the recipient of the Panavision New Filmmaker Award, a distinction shared by the first films of Steven Soderbergh and Paul Thomas Anderson. Made when he was twenty-one years old, the project was photographed by Clint Eastwood's cinematographer Tom Stern and starred Academy Award winner Melissa Leo, Jack Mulcahy and Tony nominee David Harbour.
Davenport has worked with six Academy Award nominees and two Tony nominees. He is also the youngest director in the Actors Studio.
