32 Facts About Barry Jenkins

Barry Jenkins was born on November 19,1979 and is an American filmmaker.

Barry Jenkins is a member of The Chopstars collective as a creative collaborator.

Barry Jenkins received an Oscar nomination for Best Director and jointly won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay with Tarell Alvin McCraney.

Barry Jenkins became the fourth black person to be nominated for Best Director and the second black person to direct a Best Picture winner.

Barry Jenkins released his third directorial feature If Beale Street Could Talk in 2018 to critical praise, and earned nominations for his screenplay at the Academy Awards and Golden Globes.

Barry Jenkins directed "Chapter V" of the Netflix series Dear White People in 2017.

In 2017, Barry Jenkins was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.

Barry Jenkins was born in 1979 at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, the youngest of four siblings, each from a different father.

Barry Jenkins's father separated from his mother while she was pregnant with Jenkins, believing that he was not Jenkins's father; he died when Jenkins was 12.

Barry Jenkins's mother, a nurse, suffered from a crack-cocaine addiction, and was a teenage runaway who Jenkins has said abandoned him.

Barry Jenkins grew up in Liberty City, a neighborhood of Miami, and was primarily raised by another older woman in an overcrowded apartment: "I wasn't raised by anyone who was a blood relative of mine, and yet I could see my blood relatives all around the neighborhood because things were just so, so bad".

Barry Jenkins studied film at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture Arts, where he met many of his future frequent collaborators, including cinematographer James Laxton, producer Adele Romanski and editors Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon.

Barry Jenkins felt a general lack of confidence at the start of the programme, which began for Barry Jenkins in a spontaneous manner.

Barry Jenkins became disillusioned with "Hollywood film-making" after working for Harpo Productions, an experience which contrasted with his time studying film, reflecting that "At school, film-making had been the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me".

Barry Jenkins then explored black children being tried as adults for the deaths of their peers in Little Brown Boy.

The impetus being the lack of low-budget mumblecore films which featured African-Americans, Barry Jenkins recalled that the movie represented the "place where I was both physically, emotionally, and mentally".

Barry Jenkins later worked as a carpenter and co-founded Strike Anywhere, an advertising company.

Barry Jenkins directed and co-wrote, with Tarell Alvin McCraney, the 2016 drama Moonlight, his first feature film in eight years.

Barry Jenkins did hold "some reservations and doubts" about adapting McCraney's play on account of being heterosexual, however their shared characteristics and McCraney's trust in Barry Jenkins emboldened him.

In 2017, Barry Jenkins directed the fifth episode of the Netflix original series Dear White People, having been chosen due to his work on Moonlight.

In line with the show's other directors, Barry Jenkins' work was guided by an overall visual framework, although he was encouraged to be distinctive.

In 2013, the same year he wrote Moonlight, Barry Jenkins had written a film adaptation of James Baldwin's novel If Beale Street Could Talk.

Barry Jenkins received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The next major film Barry Jenkins is set to direct is Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel to the CGI remake of Disney's The Lion King that primarily concerns the coming of age origins of Mufasa.

Barry Jenkins has a close working relationship with cinematographer James Laxton, stating that "the way we are on set is a shared language, a shared approach to the imagery".

On set, Barry Jenkins said that their goal is to incorporate as much of their preceding deliberations as possible whilst still considerate of the actors' needs and available time.

Barry Jenkins has cited James Baldwin as a significant influence, reflecting that in his early career he was "obsessed" with him.

Morgan Jerkins opined that Barry Jenkins, who re-reads texts he's adapting, "is not only a filmmaker but a bibliophile who pulls from both historical and contemporary sources".

Barry Jenkins has expressed an inclination to empathize with the characters in his work.

Barry Jenkins noted that Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk are most similar in their visuals.

Barry Jenkins viewed the changed ending of If Beale Street Could Talk as an attempt "to give his mostly Black viewership a happy ending, or at least a happier one".

Barry Jenkins has expressed consideration of his audience, considering such a perspective as a byproduct of film's expensive nature, although he does not desire to "make decisions that anticipate the reaction of an audience".