Biography for
J.J. Abrams More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

27 June 1966, New York City, New York, USA

Birth Name

Jeffrey Jacob Abrams

Height

5' 7" (1.70 m)

Spouse

Katie McGrath

(1996 - present) 3 children

Trade Mark

High-tech, action-packed spy entertainment.

Often includes a subplot about a box with mysterious contents.

Often makes references to 'Star Trek' (1966).

Often starts with a cold opening, a (suspenseful) sequence prior to the opening credits, often used to pull the audience directly into the story.

Often uses music by Michael Giacchino,

Trivia

Son of Gerald W. Abrams

Graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1988.

Gave "Alias" (2001) star Jennifer Garner a pink bicycle for her birthday. She would often greet the production crew by ringing the bells on the bike's handlebars.

He says he got the job directing Mission: Impossible III (2006) after Tom Cruise watched early episodes of "Alias" (2001) on DVD and loved them. The two started hanging out together and Cruise offered him the job.

While he was writing scripts in college, he used the Alvin Sargent screenplay to Ordinary People (1980) as a guide.

Named one of Fade In Magazine's "100 People in Hollywood You Need to Know" in 2005

Has three children with wife Katie: Henry (b. 1998), Gracie (b. 1999) and August (b. 11 January, 2006).

His debut film Mission: Impossible III is the most expensive film ever made by a first time director.

He has discussed wanting to be more involved in the 3rd season of "Lost" (2004) (interminently with his film schedule) because he hasn't been directly involved in the show since the 6th episode of the first season.

Sold his script for "Forever Young" (1992) for 2 million dollars.

He once worked as a home inspector in the San Fernando Valley with Jay Fesler and Dan Johnson.

One of 115 people invited to join AMPAS in 2007.

2007 - Ranked #29 on EW's The 50 Smartest People in Hollywood.

In 2007, Forbes Magazine estimated his earnings for the year at $17 million.

J.J. Abrams has been involved with several projects that avail themselves of the social theory called the "Milgram Small World Phenomenon," after the social psychologist Stanley Milgram, who conducted acquaintance path experiments. John Guare's play Six Degrees of Separation (1993) (and its subsequent film adaptation) is heavily responsible for introducing to the pop culture at large the notion that everyone in the world is separated by only six other people; Abrams had a small acting role in the film version. Abrams went on to produce "Six Degrees" (2006), a TV show with a premise predicated on this theory, and "Lost" (2004), a TV show in which seemingly unconnected and disparate characters often end up having hidden or unknown links to each other.

Is a fan of Howard Stern, who is also a fan of of his work (particularly Lost and Star Trek) and personally called Artie Lange through his agent to congratulate him on his being hired to replace Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling as a sidekick in 2002. Also gave Stern's daughters a tour of the Felicity set.

Personal Quotes

Star Wars is probably the most influential film of my generation. It's the personification of good and evil and the way it opened up the world to space adventure, the way westerns had to our parents' generations, left an indelible imprint. So, in a way, everything that any of us does is somehow directly or indirectly affected by the experience of seeing those first three films.

I feel like in telling stories, there are the things the audience thinks are important, and then there are the things that are actually important.

Directing's the best part. Whenever I've directed something, there's this feeling of demand and focus that I like. And secondly, it means that you've gotten through all the writing stuff, and the producing stuff, and casting, and prep, and all those stages that are seemingly endless. So directing is sort of the reward for all the work you put in before. And then there's the editing, which is another amazing stage of the process. It's incredible the moments you can create.

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