57 Facts About Jon Favreau

Jonathan Kolia Favreau is an American actor and filmmaker.

Jon Favreau directed, produced, and appeared as Happy Hogan in the films Iron Man and Iron Man 2.

Recently, Jon Favreau has been known for his work on the Star Wars franchise with Dave Filoni, creating the Disney+ original series The Mandalorian, which Filoni helped develop, with both serving as executive producers.

Jon Favreau produces films under his production company banner, Fairview Entertainment, and presented the variety series Dinner for Five and the cooking series The Chef Show.

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.

Jon Favreau's mother was Ashkenazi Jewish and his father is a Catholic of Italian and French-Canadian ancestry.

Jon 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.

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

Jon Favreau dropped out of college for good, and moved to Chicago in the summer of 1988 to pursue a career in comedy.

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

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

Jon Favreau made appearances in the sketch-comedy series, Tracey Takes On.

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

Jon 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.

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

Jon Favreau 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.

Jon Favreau starred in The Big Empty, directed by Steve Anderson.

Jon Favreau's 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.

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

Jon Favreau 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, Jon Favreau had a small part in Something's Gotta Give ; Jon Favreau played Leo, Harry Sanborn's personal assistant, who visited Harry in the hospital.

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

Jon Favreau continued to make regular appearances in film and television.

Jon Favreau reunited with friend Vaughn in the romantic comedy The Break-Up and appeared in My Name Is Earl as a reprehensible fast food manager.

Jon Favreau made a guest appearance in Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show.

Also in 2005, Jon Favreau appeared as a guest judge and executive representative of Sony Corporation in week five of the NBC business-focused primetime reality TV show, The Apprentice.

Jon Favreau was called upon to judge the efforts of the show's two teams of contestants, who were assigned the task of designing and building a float to publicize his 2005 Sony Pictures movie, Zathura: A Space Adventure.

Iron Man was the first Marvel-produced movie under their alliance with Paramount, and Jon Favreau served as the director and an executive producer.

Jon Favreau wrote two issues of a planned mini-series for Marvel Knights titled Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas, that debuted in September 2008 before being canceled in November 2008.

Jon Favreau directed and executive produced the film's sequel, Iron Man 2.

Jon Favreau said in December 2010 that he would not direct Iron Man 3 but remain an executive producer.

Jon Favreau was the third director attached to John Carter, the film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' swashbuckling space hero.

Jon Favreau co-starred in 2009's Couples Retreat, a comedy chronicling four couples who partake in therapy sessions at a tropical island resort, which he wrote.

In 2012, Jon Favreau directed the pilot for the NBC show, Revolution, and served as one of the show's executive producers, alongside JJ Abrams.

In 2013, Jon Favreau directed an episode of NBC's The Office.

Jon Favreau directed the Destiny trailer "The Law of the Jungle".

In 2014, Jon Favreau wrote, co-produced, directed, and starred in Chef.

Jon Favreau played a chef who, after a public altercation with a food critic, quits his job at a popular Los Angeles restaurant to operate a food truck with his young son.

Jon Favreau wrote the script after directing several big-budget films, wanting to go "back to basics" and to create a film about cooking.

Jon Favreau directed and produced the live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book, for Walt Disney Pictures, which was released on April 15,2016, to critical and commercial acclaim.

Jon Favreau returned as Happy Hogan in the film Spider-Man: Homecoming, and co-executive produced Avengers: Infinity War.

Jon Favreau filmed a scene for Avengers: Infinity War, but was cut, ending up on the Blu-Ray release.

In 2017, Jon Favreau directed the pilot episode of CBS' Young Sheldon.

Jon Favreau lent his voice to the character of Paz Vizsla, who was portrayed by Tait Fletcher.

In 2019, Jon Favreau appeared in the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home.

In May 2022, Jon Favreau produced the documentary series Prehistoric Planet alongside the BBC Studios Natural History Unit for Apple TV+.

In January 2024, Lucasfilm announced that a feature film titled The Mandalorian and Grogu was in active development, with Jon Favreau directing, writing, and co-producing alongside Kathleen Kennedy and Dave Filoni.

In March 2025, it was reported that Jon Favreau is developing a live-action animation hybrid series based on Oswald The Lucky Rabbit for Disney+ as writer and producer.

Jon Favreau has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.

In July 2012, Jon Favreau reported that he was officially working on the film.

In October 2012, Jon Favreau was attached to direct the racing film Battle for Bonneville about the story of Art and Walt Arfons, with Ryan Reynolds set to star as one of the leads.

Jon Favreau was additionally developing to direct Jersey Boys at the time, and wanted to follow it with Battle for Bonneville.

In June 2015, Jon Favreau stated that although he would not be working on the Star Wars anthology films, he could work on future Star Wars movies at some point.

Jon Favreau later worked with the franchise on the live action series The Mandalorian.

Jon Favreau married Joya Tillem, a physician, on November 24,2000.

In May 2019, it was announced that Jon Favreau would be named a Disney Legend at the 2019 D23 Expo for his outstanding contributions to The Walt Disney Company.

On February 13,2023, Jon Favreau received the 2,746th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.