Age, Biography, and Wiki
- Name: Jeffrey Lance Baena
- Date of Birth: June 29, 1977
- Date of Death: January 3, 2025
- Age at Death: 47 years old
Jeff Baena was a pioneering filmmaker who rose to prominence in the early 2000s for co-writing the hit comedy I Heart Huckabees (2004). He later transitioned to directing, making his debut with Life After Beth (2014), which starred his wife Aubrey Plaza. Baena became known for his improvisation-heavy, post-mumblecore style and a penchant for exploring unconventional narratives.
| Occupation | Screenwriter |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 29 June 1977 |
| Age | 47 Years |
| Birth Place | Miami, Florida, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Cancer |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 3 January, 2025 |
| Died Place | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There are no verified public records or authoritative sources documenting Jeff Baena’s height, weight, or body measurements. He was known for a modest, approachable appearance, often seen in casual attire at film screenings and public events.
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Dating & Relationship Status
- Spouse: Aubrey Plaza (married 2021–separated 2024)
- Separation Details: The couple was separated since September 2024, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner.
- Collaborations: Baena and Plaza worked together on several films, including Life After Beth and Spin Me Round.
Their relationship was highly publicized, and the couple was praised for their professional and personal support for each other. They reportedly owned a home together in Los Angeles, reflecting their shared love for art and creativity.
Jeffrey Lance Baena (June 29, 1977 – January 3, 2025) was an American screenwriter and film director. His most successful films were 2004's I Heart Huckabees and 2020's Horse Girl, though his projects to receive the most contemporary critical acclaim were the 2016 and 2017 films Joshy and The Little Hours. Baena frequently worked with his wife Aubrey Plaza, writing partner Alison Brie, and Molly Shannon.
He was raised in a secular Jewish family in the suburbs of Kendall and Coral Gables, where he enjoyed being surrounded by Latin and Caribbean cultures; he later said that he "felt a sense of community" there, a contrast to the negative perception of drug cartel violence. His family was from New York City and had moved to Miami due to his father's work as a lawyer. Baena's parents were divorced, which he credited in part with informing his dark sense of comedy. His first stepmother was manic depressive and, under Florida's Baker Act, was frequently institutionalized but then released, with Baena later commenting on systemic challenges in mental health care. He had a brother and two step-siblings.
Baena had planned for the comedy-drama Joshy to be his directorial debut, but actor and collaborator Adam Pally had to postpone for personal reasons. Baena then decided to work on the zombie comedy Life After Beth, from a script he started writing in 2003, which became his debut. This film had been in production but shelved shortly after it was written, and was only picked back up after comic actress Aubrey Plaza was looking for a role and her agent remembered the script; with Plaza attached, the production resumed. Flavorwire wrote that "Baena's control of the material is occasionally uncertain", while Mark Kermode felt Baena "kept things just the right side of believable, eschewing explanation in favour of cracked domesticity." Life After Beth received mixed reviews; the Rotten Tomatoes (RT) critics' consensus suggested the idea was too thin to sustain a whole film, though bolstered by Plaza's performance. In 2016, it was ranked the 38th best ever zombie film and described as both "the best zom-rom-com since Shaun Of The Dead" and a "mumblecore relationship break-up zomcom". It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014, the same festival at which Joshy, as Baena's second film, premiered in 2016.
Baena was renowned for the game nights he hosted, creating a social environment among filmmakers and friends that was reflected on his film sets. He met actress Aubrey Plaza during a game night in 2011, after which they began dating. Baena proposed to Plaza at a site related to the Basque witch trials in Zugarramurdi. They were married in 2021, to celebrate their tenth anniversary together, in a small ceremony in their backyard. They quietly separated in September 2024 after experiencing marital difficulties, with Plaza staying in New York. Baena began attending therapy in October after he made "concerning remarks" to Plaza, which prompted her to call a friend to perform a welfare check on him.
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| Husband | Aubrey Plaza (m. 2021-2024) |
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Net Worth and Salary
- Estimated Net Worth (2025): Sources vary, with some estimating between $3–5 million and others citing over $8 million at the time of his passing.
- Earnings Source: Primarily from his work as a screenwriter, director, and collaborations with film festivals and distribution platforms.
- Comparison: His wife Aubrey Plaza’s net worth is estimated at around $8 million.
Career, Business, and Investments
- Major Films:
- I Heart Huckabees (2004, co-writer)
- Life After Beth (2014, writer/director)
- Joshy (2016, writer/director)
- The Little Hours (2017, writer/director)
- Horse Girl (2020, writer/director)
- Cinema Toast (2021, TV series, co-creator)
- Spin Me Round (2022, writer/director)
- Production Companies: Collaborated with independent producers and distribution companies, including Duplass Brothers Productions.
- Investments: Likely included real estate, as he and Plaza reportedly owned property in Los Angeles and explored real estate in other cities.
He began his career as a screenwriter, co-writing the 2004 comedy film I Heart Huckabees and, around the same time, seeing his script for Life After Beth enter production before being shelved. Baena, as an independent filmmaker, expanded to directing a decade later and filmed Life After Beth as his directorial debut, starring Aubrey Plaza and released in 2014. Working with producer Liz Destro, and reuniting with Plaza as well as an expanding group of frequent collaborators, Baena was then writer-director for Joshy (2016) and The Little Hours (2017), which both became critically acclaimed and found a cult audience.
Social Network
Jeff Baena maintained a relatively low profile on social media. He was not known for having prominent personal accounts but was occasionally featured on the official pages of his films and by collaborators. His wife Aubrey Plaza is more active on social platforms, where she sometimes shared insights into their life and work together.
Among the performers in these films was Alison Brie, with whom Baena struck up a writing partnership and created works produced by Duplass Brothers Productions. They made the 2020 psychological drama film Horse Girl together, Baena's most commercial film, followed by the television anthology series Cinema Toast (2021) and Baena's final film, 2022's Spin Me Round. His first films saw Baena implement his post-mumblecore style as an improvisation-heavy filmmaker, and his films co-written with Brie are marked by exploration of expectations in film form.
Baena was a production assistant for filmmaker Robert Zemeckis on What Lies Beneath and Cast Away (both 2000). Both films were shot back-to-back and Zemeckis then took a production break, causing Baena to seek other employment. He became an assistant editor and, later, personal assistant for writer-director David O. Russell. Baena was originally hired to help edit online documentary Benny Hernandez before Russell asked him to contribute some writing ideas for it; the project was ultimately left unfinished. After a year and a half of working together, a minor car accident injured one of Baena's eyes. Partially to keep his spirits up and pass the time during his recovery, Russell began discussing story ideas with Baena. The two ended up collaborating on four scripts together, including I Heart Huckabees, which Russell directed in 2004, and Jay Roach's Meet the Fockers (also 2004), for which they made uncredited revisions. The philosophical I Heart Huckabees was noted for the ambition in its storytelling; it was not a commercial success, and polarized critics. By 2005 it had become a cult hit, soon finding a place in the pop culture zeitgeist, and in 2023 Robbie Collin and Tim Robey wrote that it was one of the best box-office bombs, citing its rewatchability two decades later.
After Life After Beth, Baena worked on adapting Lysergic, the autobiography of Krystle Cole that he had optioned, and suggested he might like to direct Doctor Strange as he was a fan of the character. When production resumed on Joshy, Baena provided his large comedic cast with a 20-page outline, rather than a script, as an experiment to "keep people in the moment." Baena did not audition but cast people he knew would be able to work in such a film. The film's RT critics' consensus highlighted Baena's direction for "strik[ing] a unique, disarmingly heartfelt blend of dark humor and tragedy". The Los Angeles Times praised that despite its improvisational nature, "the film never feels unfocused or messy"; Christy Lemire felt Baena's work had improved since his debut; and Glenn Kenny noted Baena's skill in tonally dictating his film. Joshy was ranked the fifth best ever mumblecore film separately by screenwriter Jason Hellerman and critic Mike Bedard, with Bedard also describing it as "post-mumblecore".
Having formed a friendship after working on previous movies, and knowing of the creative risks Baena liked to take, Brie pitched the idea for a drama about fear of mental illness to him while on a hike. He had been suggesting that she play a "horse girl" character, and they realized they could combine the ideas to create what became Horse Girl. The pair pitched it to the Duplass Brothers, who joined and offered it to Netflix. Baena and Brie wrote the screenplay together, and some of the film's dialogue was improvised. After premiering at Sundance in 2020, Horse Girl began streaming on Netflix and was the most commercially successful of Baena's works. Reviews noted the use and subversion of form to inform the story, which was generally praised but also criticized by Adrian Horton in The Guardian.
The pair again chose to subvert expectations in Spin Me Round, the shoot of which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. They used the delay to expand the film outline into a more detailed script. The film combined comedy and thriller genres, and critics noted the story for "a provocative #MeToo statement". Spin Me Round saw mixed reviews, its RT critics' consensus saying that "it never quite lives up to its potential" but is nevertheless enjoyable and elevated by Plaza and Brie. The Hollywood Reporter felt it was "amusing but the most lightweight" of Baena's films.
Education
Jeff Baena’s formal education background is not widely publicized. He is known to have attended film school and honed his craft as a screenwriter and director, developing a distinctive style that resonated with independent film audiences. However, specific institutions or degrees have not been confirmed in available sources.
After Killian High School, Baena graduated from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in film, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue directing. He, without really intending, achieved a minor in medieval studies at NYU after taking multiple classes when he "was hard-core into the alchemy shit", and also took classes relating to philosophy.
