Jon Favreau

Jonathan Kolia Favreau (born October 19, 1966) is an American filmmaker and actor.

Jonathan Kolia Favreau was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, on October 19, 1966, the only child of Madeleine, an elementary school teacher who died of leukemia in 1979, and Charles Favreau, a special education teacher.

His mother was Jewish, of Russian descent, and his father is a Catholic of Italian and French-Canadian ancestry.

Favreau dropped out of Hebrew school to pursue acting.

However, following his mother's death, both sides of his family worked to ensure he had a bar mitzvah ceremony.

Favreau graduated from The Bronx High School of Science, a school for gifted students, in 1984 and attended Queens College from 1984 to 1987, before dropping out.

His friend from college, Mitchell Pollack, said that Favreau went by the nickname "Johnny Hack" because of his abilities in the game Hacky Sack.

He briefly worked for Bear Stearns on Wall Street before returning to Queens College for a semester in early 1988.

He dropped out of college for good (a few credits shy of completing his degree), and moved to Chicago in the summer of 1988 to pursue a career in comedy.

He performed at several Chicago improvisational theaters, including the ImprovOlympic and the Improv Institute.

As an actor, Favreau has appeared in films such as Rudy (1993), PCU (1994), Swingers (1996), Very Bad Things (1998), Deep Impact (1998), The Replacements (2000), Daredevil (2003), The Break-Up (2006), Four Christmases (2008), Couples Retreat (2009), I Love You, Man (2009), People Like Us (2012), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Chef (2014), and several films created by Marvel Studios.

As a filmmaker, Favreau has been significantly involved with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While in Chicago, Favreau landed his first film role alongside Sean Astin as tutor D-Bob in the sleeper hit Rudy (1993).

Favreau met Vince Vaughn – who played a small role in this film – during shooting.

The next year, he appeared in the college film PCU alongside Jeremy Piven, and the 1994 episode of Seinfeld titled "The Fire" as Eric the Clown.

Favreau then moved to Los Angeles, where he made his breakthrough in 1996 as an actor-screenwriter with the film Swingers, which was also Vaughn's breakthrough role as the character Trent Walker, a foil to Favreau's heartbroken Mike Peters.

Favreau made appearances in the sketch-comedy series, Tracey Takes On... in both 1996 and 1997.

In 1997, he appeared on the television sitcom Friends, portraying Pete Becker – Monica Geller's millionaire boyfriend who competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) – for several episodes.

Favreau landed the role of Gus Partenza in Deep Impact (1998), and that same year rejoined Piven in Very Bad Things (1998).

In 1999, he starred in the television film Rocky Marciano, based on the life of world heavyweight champion, Rocky Marciano.

He later appeared in Love & Sex (2000), co-starring Famke Janssen.

Favreau appeared in 2000's The Replacements as maniacal linebacker Daniel Bateman, and that same year he played himself in The Sopranos episode "D-Girl", as a Hollywood director who feigns interest in developing mob associate Christopher Moltisanti's screenplay in order to collect material for his own screenplay.

In 2001, he made his film directorial debut with another self-penned screenplay, Made.

Made once again teamed him up with his Swingers co-star Vince Vaughn.

Favreau also starred in a TV series called Dinner for Five, which aired on the cable TV channel IFC from 2001 to 2005.

He was a guest-director for an episode of the college dramedy Undeclared in 2001, and Favreau got some screen time as lawyer Foggy Nelson in the 2003 movie Daredevil (2003) (considerably more in the director's cut version).

Favreau is credited as a screenwriter for the 2002 film The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest.

He has also directed the films Elf (2003), Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005), Cowboys & Aliens (2011), Chef (2014), The Jungle Book (2016), and The Lion King (2019).

He also starred in The Big Empty (2003), directed by Steve Anderson.

His character was John Person, an out of work actor given a strange mission to deliver a blue suitcase to a man named Cowboy in the desert.

In the fall of 2003, he scored his first financial success as a director of the hit comedy Elf starring Will Ferrell, Zooey Deschanel, James Caan, and Peter Dinklage.

Also in 2003, Favreau had a small part in Something's Gotta Give (a film starring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson); Favreau played Leo, Harry Sanborn's (Nicholson) personal assistant, who visited Harry in the hospital.

In 2005, Favreau directed the film adaptation of the children's book Zathura.

It received positive reviews, but was not commercially successful.

Favreau continued to make regular appearances in film and television.

He directed, produced, and appeared as Happy Hogan in the films Iron Man (2008) and Iron Man 2 (2010).

He also served as an executive producer for or appeared as the character in the films The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).

Favreau is the creator of the Star Wars Disney+ original series The Mandalorian (2019–present) as well as one of its executive producers and directors.

He also serves as a writer and executive producer for its spin-off series The Book of Boba Fett.

He produces films under his production company banner, Fairview Entertainment, and also presents the television cooking series The Chef Show.