Age, Biography, and Wiki
Darren Aronofsky, born on February 12, 1969, is now 56 years old. He is recognized for his distinctive filmmaking style, which often incorporates elements of psychological realism and surrealism. His senior thesis film, Supermarket Sweep, was a National Student Academy Award finalist, marking the beginning of his successful career.
| Occupation | Film Producer |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 12 February 1969 |
| Age | 56 Years |
| Birth Place | New York City, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Aquarius |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
While specific details about Darren Aronofsky's height and weight are not widely documented, he is known for his intense focus on his work, which often reflects in his physical appearance during film promotions.
Aronofsky's first two films, Pi and Requiem for a Dream, were low budget and used montages of extremely short shots, also known as hip hop montages. While an average 100-minute film has 600 to 700 cuts, Requiem for a Dream features more than 2,000. Split-screen is used extensively, along with extremely tight closeups. Long tracking shots, including those shot with an apparatus strapping a camera to an actor, called the Snorricam, and time-lapse photography are also prominent stylistic devices. Often with his films, Aronofsky alternates between extreme closeups and extreme wide shots to create a sense of isolation.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Darren Aronofsky was in a relationship with actress Jennifer Lawrence from 2012 to 2017. He has kept his personal life relatively private, focusing more on his professional endeavors.
Aronofsky then directed the psychological drama Requiem for a Dream (2000), the romantic fantasy sci-fi drama The Fountain (2006), and the sports drama The Wrestler (2008), the latter of which earned the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. For his critically acclaimed psychological drama Black Swan (2010), he was nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards and BAFTA, the film received 5 Oscars nominations including Best Picture. His later films include the epic Noah (2014) and the psychological horror film Mother! (2017). His acclaimed drama The Whale (2022) won the Academy Awards for Best Actor (Brendan Fraser), Best Makeup and Hairstyling and a Best Supporting Actress nomination (Hong Chau) as well as four nominations for the 76th British Academy Film Awards.
He grew up in Brooklyn's Manhattan Beach neighborhood. He said he was "raised culturally Jewish, but there was very little spiritual attendance in the temple. It was a cultural thing—celebrating the holidays, knowing where you came from, knowing your history, having respect for what your people have been through." He graduated from Edward R. Murrow High School. He has one sister, Patti, who attended a professional ballet school through high school. His parents would often take him to Broadway performances, which sparked his interest in show business.
Aronofsky followed his debut with Requiem for a Dream, a film based on Hubert Selby Jr.'s novel of the same name. He was paid $50,000, and worked for three years with nearly the same production team as his previous film. Following the financial breakout of Pi, he was capable of hiring established actors, including Ellen Burstyn and Jared Leto, and received a budget of $3,500,000 to produce the film. Production of the film occurred over the period of one year, with the film being released in October 2000. The film went on to gross $7,390,108 worldwide. Aronofsky received acclaim for his stylish direction, and was nominated for another Independent Spirit Award, this time for Best Director. The film itself was nominated for five awards in total, winning two, for Best Actress and Cinematography. Clint Mansell's soundtrack for the film was also well-regarded, and since their first collaboration in 1996, Mansell has composed the music to every Aronofsky film (except for Mother!, 2017 and The Whale, 2022). Ellen Burstyn was nominated for numerous awards, including for an Academy Award for Best Actress, and won the Independent Spirit Award. Aronofsky was awarded the PRISM Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with the National Institute on Drug Abuse for the film's depiction of drug abuse.
Aronofsky was set to direct an HBO series pilot called Hobgoblin. Announced on June 16, 2011, the series would have depicted a group of magicians and con artists who use their powers of deception to defeat Hitler during World War II. He was set to work on the project with Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon and his wife Ayelet Waldman. In June 2013, it was announced that HBO had dropped the show and Aronofsky had pulled out, as well.
Aronofsky's next film, Mother!, was released by Paramount Pictures on September 15, 2017. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, Ed Harris and Kristen Wiig. The film sparked controversy upon release for its depiction of violence, and, though it received generally positive reviews, it polarized audiences, becoming one of few films to receive a "F" CinemaScore grade. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 278 reviews, and an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "There's no denying that Mother! is the thought-provoking product of a singularly ambitious artistic vision, though it may be too unwieldy for mainstream tastes."
His next film would be "A courtroom drama of Artificial intelligence", in which he would cooperate again with Paramount Pictures, having doing so in Mother!. In 2018, he was the co-executive producer of SPHERES, a virtual reality journey through the universe, that was acquired in a seven figure deal at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.
Aronofsky's films have also been criticized for content and casting. His seventh film Mother! (2017) sparked controversy upon release due to its graphic and disturbing content, polarizing both critics and audiences. His eighth film The Whale (2022) also received controversy for lead star Brendan Fraser wearing a prosthetic suit; and for casting the heterosexual Fraser as a homosexual character. Some critics labeled the film's messaging relating to its lead character's obesity as fatphobic. In preparing for the role, Fraser consulted the Obesity Action Coalition (OAC) and conversed with members of the group about their life experiences. The OAC recognized the controversial use of prosthetics in portraying obesity, but the organization supported its role in the film because it helped "realistically portray one person's story with obesity, something rarely seen in media" rather than existing to "demean or ridicule".
Aronofsky is known for his environmental activism. A number of his films, notably Noah and Mother!, can be read as environmental parables. In 2014 he traveled to the Alberta Tar Sands with the Sierra Club's Michael Brune and Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2015, he traveled to Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with Brune, Keri Russell, and the leaders of several veterans groups.
Aronofsky began dating English actress Rachel Weisz in 2001, and they were engaged in 2005. They lived in Manhattan's East Village and had a son on May 31, 2006. In November 2010, they announced that they had been separated for months but were raising their son together.
In September 2016, he began dating American actress Jennifer Lawrence, whom he met during the filming of Mother!. The relationship ended in November 2017.
In 2024, both he and his sister Patti became Polish citizens. His Polish lawyer explained that Aronofsky applied for Polish citizenship to fulfill his parents' wish.
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Net Worth and Salary
Darren Aronofsky's net worth is estimated to be around $25 million, primarily resulting from his successful film career and ventures through his production company, Protozoa Pictures[Note: The exact figure might vary based on recent financial reports, but as of the last available data, it was approximately this amount]. His films have not only garnered critical acclaim but have also been commercially successful, contributing to his net worth.
Aronofsky's debut feature, titled Pi—sometimes stylized as π—was shot in October 1997. The film was financed in part from $100 donations from his friends and family. In return, he promised to pay each back $150 if the film made money, and they would at least get screen credit if the film lost money. Producing the film with an initial budget of $60,000, Aronofsky premiered Pi at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, where he won the Best Director award. The film itself was nominated for a special Jury Award. Artisan Entertainment bought distribution rights for $1 million. The film was released to the public later that year to critical acclaim and it grossed a total of $3,221,152 at the box-office. Pi was the first film to be made available for download on the Internet.
Career, Business, and Investments
Aronofsky's career spans over three decades, with his feature film debut being the surrealist thriller Pi (1998), for which he won the Director's Award at the Sundance Film Festival. He has since directed iconic films like Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Fountain (2006), The Wrestler (2008), Black Swan (2010), Noah (2014), and Mother! (2017). His production company, Protozoa Pictures, founded in 1997, has been instrumental in producing many of his films. Aronofsky also ventured into television with projects like Welcome to Earth (2021).
Aronofsky studied film and social anthropology at Harvard University before studying directing at the AFI Conservatory. He won several film awards after completing his senior thesis film, Supermarket Sweep, which became a National Student Academy Award finalist. In 1997, he founded the film and TV production company Protozoa Pictures. His feature film debut, the surrealist psychological thriller Pi (1998), earned him the award for Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival and an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay.
Social Network
Darren Aronofsky maintains a relatively low profile on social media, focusing more on his creative work. However, he occasionally engages with fans and promotes his projects through platforms like Instagram and Twitter.
Aronofsky was attached to The Wolverine, which was scheduled to begin production in March 2011, but he left the project due to scheduling issues. The film was set to be sixth entry of the X-Men film series, featuring a story revolving around Wolverine's adventures in Japan. In April 2011, Aronofsky was announced as the president of the jury for the 68th Venice International Film Festival.
In 2011, Aronofsky tried to launch production on Noah, a retelling of the Bible story of Noah's Ark, projected for a $115 million budget. By the following year, the film had secured funding and distribution from New Regency and Paramount Pictures, with Russell Crowe hired for the title role. The film was adapted into a serialized graphic novel written by Aronofsky and Ari Handel, published in French in October 2011 by the Belgian publisher Le Lombard. By July 2012, Aronofsky's crews were building an ark set in Oyster Bay, New York. Aronofsky announced the start of filming on Noah on Twitter in the same month, tweeting shots of the filming in Iceland. The film featured Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins, Logan Lerman, and Jennifer Connelly, with the latter having also starred in Requiem for a Dream. During its opening weekend, Noah held the largest non-sequel opening within Russia and Brazil, and the fourth-largest opening of all time. Aronofsky did not use live animals for the film, saying in a PETA video that "there's really no reason to do it anymore because the technology has arrived". The Humane Society of the United States gave him their inaugural Humane Filmmaker Award in honor of his use of computer-generated animals. That same year, he was announced as the president of the jury for the 65th Berlin International Film Festival for February 2015.
In 2018, Aronofsky executive produced the 10-part documentary series One Strange Rock for National Geographic. Episodes cover topics like the universe's origins, alien life, human intelligence, and themes of survival and destruction. Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter describes One Strange Rock as "spectacular, delivering the same sort of bringing-science-to-life thrills for Earth as Cosmos did with the universe and Blue Planet and Planet Earth have done with myriad lifeforms."
The majority of reviewers characterized Requiem for a Dream in the genre of "drug movies", along with films like The Basketball Diaries, Trainspotting, Spun, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But, Aronofsky placed his movie in a wider context, saying: "Requiem for a Dream is not about heroin or about drugs ... The Harry-Tyrone-Marion story is a very traditional heroin story. But putting it side by side with the Sara story, we suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, what is a drug?' The idea that the same inner monologue goes through a person's head when they're trying to quit drugs, as with cigarettes, as when they're trying to not eat food so they can lose 20 pounds, was really fascinating to me. I thought it was an idea that we hadn't seen on film and I wanted to bring it up on the screen."Dream logic is another leitmotif.
Education
Aronofsky studied film and social anthropology at Harvard University before attending the AFI Conservatory to hone his directing skills. His educational background has significantly influenced his approach to filmmaking, incorporating elements of both art and social understanding.
By combining his creative vision with business acumen, Darren Aronofsky has built a successful career in the film industry, earning both critical acclaim and financial success.
During his youth, Aronofsky trained as a field biologist with The School for Field Studies in Kenya in 1985 and Alaska in 1986. He attended school in Kenya to pursue an interest in learning about ungulates. He later said that the School for Field Studies "changed the way [he] perceived the world". Aronofsky's interest in the outdoors led him to backpack his way through Europe and the Middle East. At the age of 18, he entered Harvard University, where he majored in social anthropology and studied filmmaking; he graduated in 1991. He became seriously interested in film while attending Harvard after befriending Dan Schrecker, an aspiring animator, and Sean Gullette, who would go on to star in Aronofsky's first film, Pi. His cinematic influences included Akira Kurosawa, Roman Polanski, Federico Fellini, Terry Gilliam, Shinya Tsukamoto, Hubert Selby Jr. Spike Lee, Satoshi Kon, and Jim Jarmusch.
Aronofsky's senior thesis film, Supermarket Sweep, was a finalist in the 1991 Student Academy Awards. In 1992, Aronofsky received his MFA degree in directing from the AFI Conservatory, where his classmates included Todd Field, Doug Ellin, Scott Silver, and Mark Waters. He won the institute's Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal.
