David Russell was born in New York City, New York, the son of Maria (née Muzio) and Bernard Russell, who was a sales executive for Simon & Schuster. His father was from a Russian Jewish family, while his mother was Italian American and Catholic. He was raised in an atheist household.
A fictional film set in the alluring world of one of the most extraordinary scandals of the 1970s, American Hustle tells the story of brilliant con man Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), who along with his equally cunning and seductive partner Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) is forced to work for a wild FBI agent
