J. J. Abrams Jeffrey Jacob Abrams
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J.J. Abrams directed the 2009 Star Trek reboot and the 2015 Star Wars: The Force Awakens, becoming the only person besides George Lucas to direct multiple Star Wars films. He co-created the television series Lost and Alias, and founded Bad Robot Productions in 2001. Lens flares and the recurring name Kelvin frequently appear in his movies and TV shows.
Names, aliases, and relatives of J.J. Abrams — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
J.J. Abrams by the numbers — life, work, and family.
J.J. Abrams — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Jeffrey Jacob Abrams was born in New York City on June 27, 1966, to television producers Carol Ann Abrams and Gerald W. Abrams. Raised in Los Angeles, he attended Palisades Charter High School and later Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York, graduating in 1988. At age 15, he wrote the music for Don Dohler’s 1982 film Nightbeast. During his senior year of college, he teamed with Jill Mazursky to write the 1990 film Taking Care of Business, his first feature film.
Abrams began his professional career co-writing Regarding Henry in 1991 and Forever Young in 1992. In 1997, he co-wrote Gone Fishin’ with Mazursky and contributed to the screenplay for Armageddon in 1998. The next year, he co-created the television series Felicity, composing its theme music. Bad Robot Productions was founded in 2001 with Bryan Burk; that same year he created Alias, followed by Lost in 2004, executive-producing both and composing their theme music. Lost won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 2005. He made his feature directorial debut with Mission: Impossible III in 2006, reinvigorating the series. In 2008, he produced the mystery film Cloverfield and co-created Fringe. The 2009 Star Trek reboot, which he directed, was a critical and commercial success. Super 8 from 2011, co-produced by Steven Spielberg, and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol from 2011 followed. He returned to direct Star Trek Into Darkness in 2013. In 2015, he directed Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, the first film in the sequel trilogy, after initially hesitating due to family concerns. That year he also produced Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, and later Star Trek Beyond in 2016, and executive-produced Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi in 2017. He returned to direct Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, completing the trilogy.
Abrams married Katie McGrath in 1996; the couple has three children: Henry Abrams born in 1998, Gracie Abrams born in 1999, and August Abrams born in 2006. His daughter Gracie is a professional singer. His children provided voices for his production company, Bad Robot Productions. Abrams resides in Pacific Palisades, California. He is best friends with actor Greg Grunberg, whom he frequently casts in his projects.
J.J. Abrams is the first director to have helmed both a Star Trek film and a Star Wars film, revitalizing both franchises for modern audiences. His signature lens flare effect and recurring use of the name Kelvin, his grandfather’s name, became hallmarks of his style. He has been ranked among the smartest people in Hollywood by Entertainment Weekly in 2007. Through Bad Robot, he has shaped genre television and film for decades. He is most remembered for relaunching Star Trek in 2009 and bringing Star Wars back to theaters in 2015.
The complete filmography of J.J. Abrams — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by J.J. Abrams — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
A wall of memorable lines from J.J. Abrams — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
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.
I’ve Always Liked Working on Stories That Combine People Who Are Relatable with Something Insane. the Most Exciting Thing for Me Is Crossing That Bridge Between Something We Know Is Real and Something That Is Extraordinary. the Thing for Me Has Always Been How You Cross That Bridge.
There’s Something About Looking at Super 8 Films That Is so Evocative. You Could Argue It’s the Resolution of the Film Somehow Because They Aren’t Crystal Clear and Perfect, so There Is a Kind of Gauzy Layer Between You and What You See. You Could Argue It’s the Silence of Them. You Could Say It’s the Sound of the Projector That Creates a Moodiness. but There’s Something About Looking at Analog Movies That’s Infinitely More Powerful Than Digital.
Looking Back on My Childhood, I Have a List of Things That Are Massively Important to Me. Without Question, Star Wars Was on the List, and Star Trek Was Not.
I Actually Had to Use Industrial Light & Magic to Remove Lens Flare in a Couple of Shots, Which Is, I Know, Moronic. but I Think Admitting You’re an Addict Is the First Step Towards Recovery.
I Don’t Think I Have a Signature.
To Me the Interesting Main Character Is Never the One Without Flaws.
I Think You Have a Passion and an Obsession for Something When It’s Not Necessarily Ubiquitous.
I Try to Push Ideas Away, and the Ones That Will Not Leave Me Alone Are the Ones That Ultimately End up Happening.
You Can Never Guess or Assume What Anyone Is Going to Think.
All I Know Is That I’ve Made Some Big Screw-ups, and I’ve Done Some Things That Have Done All Right. I Just Keep Trying to Learn from the Mistakes I’ve Made.
What’s a Bigger Mystery Box Than a Movie Theatre? You Go to the Theatre, You’re Just so Excited to See Anything – the Moment the Lights Go Down Is Often the Best Part.
Robotics Are Beginning to Cross That Line from Absolutely Primitive Motion to Motion That Resembles Animal or Human Behaviour.
My Mother Is the Coolest, Most Amazing Person I Know.
I’ve Had the Same Friends Since I Was in Kindergarten.
You Never Want to Have That Ticking Clock and Know That You Had All This Time and Didn’t Use It.
We’re Living at a Time Where If You Do a Google Search for a Show, Review and Network, You’ll Get the New York Times and Pete Billingsley from a Town You’ve Never Heard of on the Same Results Page. It’s Kind of Democratizing the Process so That Everyone Has Access to a Distribution System to Express Themselves.
Whenever a Toddler Sees a Pile of Blocks, He Wants to Tear It Down.
I’m Not Trying to Be Coy or Manipulative or Machiavellian, I Want to Spark People’s Imaginations.
I Love Movies with Spectacle but Spectacle Can Be a Performance, It Doesn’t Have to Be a Creature.
When I Was a Kid, Among the Other Embarrassing Things I Would Do, and There’s a List of Stupid Things, but I Would Make These Dumb Comedy Tapes. I Would Often Make Prank Phone Calls, but I Would Also Do It with Friends.
Pitching Is Always a Weird, Difficult Thing.
Whenever I’ve Directed Something, There’s This Feeling of Demand and Focus That I Like.
I Think That Even If You’re Wondering If Two Characters Are Ever Going to Kiss, Drawing Out the Inevitability Is Part of the Fun. Whatever the Genre Happens to Be.
The Goal Is Always to Do B Material in an a Fashion.
When I Was a Little Kid – and Even Still – I Loved Magic Tricks. When I Saw How Movies Got Made – at Least Had a Glimpse When I Went on the Universal Studios Tour with My Grandfather, I Remember Feeling Like This Was Another Means by Which I Could Do Magic.
I Love Working with the Right Actor, and If the Right Actor Happens to Be Unknown, That Should Be Allowed, Too, I Think.
I Hate to Look at the Stuff I’ve Written and Consider What It Means or Why I Do It.
When You Work on Something That Combines Both the Spectacular and the Relatable, the Hyperreal and the Real, It Suddenly Can Become Supernatural. the Hypothetical and the Theoretical Can Become Literal.
It’s a Leap of Faith Doing Any Serialised Storytelling.
I Hope to Make Movies That Are so Small They Don’t Need to Make Anything to Be Profitable.
When There’s an Authentic Mystery, as Opposed to Just a Question Being Asked, That’s What Makes You Lean Forward.
I Believe in Anything That Will Engage the Audience and Make the Story More Effective.
The Ability of a Television Series to Make Adjustments Is Something You’ve Got to Take Advantage Of.
I Love the Idea of Anthropomorphizing Machines. I Love the Idea of Taking Technology and Giving It a Personality.
All the Times I’ve Been Lucky Enough to Be a Part of a Show That’s Actually Gotten on the Air, It’s Always That Same Mixture of Excitement and Utter Fear.
The Internet Now Provides an Immediate and Very Clear Consensus of What It Is That the Audience Is Experiencing. It’s Something That You Should Never Let Lead You, and yet at the Same Time, You Should Never Ignore It.
I Don’t Try and Write Strong Female Characters or Strong Male Characters, I Just Try and Write, Hopefully, Strong Characters and Sometimes They Happen to Be Female.
As a Director/writer/producer, All You Ever Want Is to Work with Actors Who Make You Look Better, Who Make the Work You Do Seem as Good as It Can Be and Even Better Than It Is.
Stories in Which the Destruction of Society Occurs Are Explorations of Social Fears and Issues That Filmmakers, Novelists, Playwrights, Painters Have Been Examining for a Long Time.
Making Movies Was More a Reaction to Not Being Chosen for Sports. Other Kids Were Out There Playing at Whatever; I Was off Making Something Blow up and Filming It, or Making a Mould of My Sister’s Head Using Alginating Plaster.
I’m Literally Open to Any Medium That Will Have Me.
Little-known facts about J.J. Abrams — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
He got the job directing Mission: Impossible III in 2006 after Tom Cruise watched early episodes of Alias on DVD and loved them; Cruise then offered him the job.
Frequently uses the name Kelvin in his movies, which was his grandfather’s name. Examples include the character Kelvin Inman from Lost, a postcard addressed to H. Kelvin in Mission: Impossible III, the USS Kelvin in Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, Kelvin Gasoline in Super 8, and Kelvin Ridge in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Is a huge fan of the 1959 series The Twilight Zone, with his favorite episode being Walking Distance from 1959.
His debut film Mission: Impossible III from 2006 was the most expensive film ever made by a first-time director until Tron: Legacy from 2010, directed by Joseph Kosinski, which cost nearly $20 million more than MI3.
Is the first director to have directed both a Star Trek film and a Star Wars film.
Sold his screenplay for the 1992 film Forever Young for $2 million.
Gave Alias 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.
Is an avid fan of the television series Downton Abbey from 2010 and has visited the set at Ealing Studios.
Best friends with Greg Grunberg since childhood; he frequently casts Grunberg in his movies and television series.
Is the only person other than George Lucas to have directed multiple Star Wars films.
His daughter, Gracie Abrams, is a professional singer.
While writing scripts in college, he used the Alvin Sargent screenplay for the 1980 film Ordinary People as a guide.
His children, Henry Abrams and Gracie Abrams, provided the voices for his production company, Bad Robot Productions.
Attended and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York, in 1988.
Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg asked him to write the 2005 film War of the Worlds, but he was busy developing the pilot for Lost.
He has been involved with several projects that advance the social theory called the Milgram Small World Phenomenon. John Guare’s play Six Degrees of Separation and its film adaptation introduced the concept that everyone is separated by only six other people. Abrams had a small acting role in the film version, later produced the TV series Six Degrees, and created Lost, where seemingly unconnected characters often have hidden links.
He discussed wanting to be more involved in the third season of Lost because he had not been directly involved since the sixth episode of the first season.
Is one of 115 people invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2007.
The action scenes in his movies often focus on debris flying violently through the air or space, such as the opening scene of Lost, the starship attacks in Star Trek films, and the train accident in Super 8.
In a 2011 interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Abrams told a story about attending an early rough-cut screening of the 1981 film Escape from New York with his father. His father suggested cutting an opening sequence where Snake tries to rob a bank, and young J.J. suggested making clearer that Maggie dies. Both suggestions were followed in the final cut.
Ranked number 29 on Entertainment Weekly’s The 50 Smartest People in Hollywood in 2007.
Has cited Steven Spielberg as his hero.
Has three children with his wife Katie McGrath: son Henry Abrams born in 1998, daughter Gracie Abrams born in 1999, and son August Abrams born on January 11, 2006.
His favorite movies are Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope from 1977, The Philadelphia Story from 1940, Rear Window from 1954, Tootsie from 1982, and Jaws from 1975.
Named one of Fade In magazine’s 100 People in Hollywood You Need to Know in 2005.
In 2007, Forbes magazine estimated his earnings for the year at $17 million.
Currently resides in Pacific Palisades, California.
Is a fan of Howard Stern, who is also a fan of Abrams’ work. Stern personally called Artie Lange to congratulate him on being hired as a sidekick. Abrams also gave Stern’s daughters a tour of the set of Felicity.
Wrote a Superman screenplay for Warner Bros. called Superman Flyby, which would have revealed Lex Luthor as a Kryptonian sleeper agent with powers equal to Superman, and Krypton would still exist. Warner Bros. rejected it, and the 2006 film Superman Returns was made instead.
Provided an uncredited screenplay polish for the 2008 film Iron Man.
Was going to direct an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series with Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, but dropped out after two years of development.
Has had Industrial Light & Magic repair his overuse of lens flare by removing them in post-production.
His family is Jewish, with roots in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine.
Son of Carol Abrams, born Carol Ann Kelvin, a producer, writer, and academic, and Gerald W. Abrams, a producer.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about J.J. Abrams.
Celebrities similar to J.J. Abrams — same craft, ranked by reach.
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