Charles Stuart Kaufman is an American filmmaker and novelist.
37 Facts About Charlie Kaufman
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Charlie Kaufman wrote the films Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
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Charlie Kaufman both wrote and directed the films Synecdoche, New York, Anomalisa, and I'm Thinking of Ending Things.
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In 2020, Charlie Kaufman made his literary debut with the release of his first novel, Antkind.
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One of the most celebrated screenwriters of his era, Charlie Kaufman has received an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Independent Spirit Awards, and a Writers Guild of America Award.
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Three of Charlie Kaufman's scripts appear in the Writers Guild of America's list of the 101 greatest movie screenplays ever written.
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Charlie Kaufman was born in New York City to a Jewish family on November 19,1958, the son of Helen and Myron Charlie Kaufman.
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Charlie Kaufman grew up in Massapequa, New York, before moving to West Hartford, Connecticut, where he graduated from high school.
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In high school, Charlie Kaufman was in the drama club, performing in numerous productions before landing the lead role in a production of Play It Again, Sam during his senior year.
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Charlie Kaufman's work included parodies of Kurt Vonnegut and the X-Men.
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The agent suggested Charlie Kaufman move from Minneapolis to Los Angeles in search of more job prospects.
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Charlie Kaufman moved to Los Angeles alone for two months, interviewing for a variety of different television writing jobs.
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Charlie Kaufman was prepared to accept the job and move back to Minneapolis until he was offered a job by David Mirkin, writing for the second season of his and Chris Elliott's sitcom Get a Life, starring Elliott.
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Charlie Kaufman wrote two episodes of Get a Life before its cancellation in 1992.
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At first, Charlie Kaufman found the experience of working on a writing staff nerve-wracking and did not speak in the writer's room for the first few weeks.
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Charlie Kaufman continued to work on other comedic series: Fox's sketch comedy show The Edge, The Trouble with Larry and Ned and Stacey, the last of which he produced.
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Charlie Kaufman wrote some pilot scripts of his own, but none of them was produced.
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Charlie Kaufman first came to mainstream notice as the writer of Being John Malkovich, directed by Spike Jonze, earning an Academy Award nomination for his effort and winning a BAFTA.
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Charlie Kaufman wrote the script on spec in 1994, sending it to many companies and studios, all of which turned it down.
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The idea came to Charlie Kaufman while attempting to adapt Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief into film.
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Charlie Kaufman wrote the screenplay for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a biopic based on the "unauthorized autobiography" of Chuck Barris, the creator of such popular game shows as The Dating Game and host of The Gong Show.
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Charlie Kaufman criticized Clooney for making drastic alterations to the script without consulting him.
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, released in 2004, was Charlie Kaufman's second pairing with director Michel Gondry.
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Charlie Kaufman won his first Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and third BAFTA for the film together with Gondry and French artist Pierre Bismuth.
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Charlie Kaufman made his directorial film debut with the postmodern film Synecdoche, New York, starring an ensemble cast led by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
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Charlie Kaufman decided to direct the film after Jonze left the project to direct Where the Wild Things Are instead.
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The film's poor box office resulted in Charlie Kaufman finding it difficult to gain funding for scripts to which he has attached himself as director.
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Charlie Kaufman was slated to write and direct a film with the working title Frank or Francis.
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Charlie Kaufman directed and wrote a pilot for FX titled How and Why in 2014.
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Charlie Kaufman later attempted to develop his IQ 83 screenplay into a limited series for HBO, to no avail.
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Charlie Kaufman did uncredited rewrites on films such as Kung Fu Panda 2 and Ad Astra.
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Charlie Kaufman co-directed the film with Duke Johnson, who had previous experience in stop motion filmmaking, and the original cast of the play production returned to reprise their roles.
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In January 2018, it was announced that Charlie Kaufman was working on writing and directing an adaptation of Iain Reid's 2016 novel I'm Thinking of Ending Things.
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Charlie Kaufman's works explore such universal themes as identity crisis, mortality, and the meaning of life through a metaphysical or parapsychological framework.
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Charlie Kaufman uses metafiction as a literary device, and sometimes includes fictionalized "facts" about his life in his work, notably Adaptation.
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Apes recur in Charlie Kaufman's work: in Being John Malkovich, Lotte has a pet chimp named Elijah; in Human Nature, Puff was raised as an ape; in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Penny dreams about an ape; and in Adaptation, the original deus ex machina was a swamp ape.
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Charlie Kaufman is married to Denise Monaghan, with whom he has a daughter, Anna.