Avid reader Charlie Kaufman wrote plays and made short films as a young student. He moved from Massapequa, New York to West Hartford, Connecticut in 1972 where he attended high school. As a comedic actor, he performed in school plays and, after graduation, he enrolled at Boston University but soon transferred NYU to study film. Charlie worked in the circulation department of the Star Tribune, in Minneapolis, in the late 1980s and moved to Los Angeles in 1991, where he was hired to write for the TV sitcom _"Get a Life" . Charlie works at home in Pasadena, California, where he lives with his wife Denise and children.
Ranked #100 in Premieres 2003 annual Power 100 List. He was the only writer on the list.
Kaufman has a reputation for avoiding interviews with the media, but this is a fallacy, as demonstrated by the scores of interviews you can find online. He has rarely been interviewed on TV; he was interviewed by Charlie Rose at the end of March 2004, and by Stephen Colbert in December of 2008.
On February 11, 2003, Charlie Kaufman was nominated for a Academy Award, along with his fictional twin brother Donald Kaufman, for the screenplay of Adaptation. This is one of the few times in Oscar history that a nomination has been bestowed upon a fictional human being.
3 of the 5 movies he has penned so far are based around real people in fictional situations: Susan Orlean, John Laroche and himself in Adaptation. , Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind , John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich (obviously).
Charlies fictional twin Brother Donald Kaufman is credited as the screenwriter of the fictional psychological thriller "The 3", as described in Adaptation. .
Has one daughter, Anna.
Wrote an unproduced draft of A Scanner Darkly .
Worked alongside Stephen Colbert and Louis C.K. on the writing staff of "The Dana Carvey Show" .
I do like escapism. I like going to the movies on a Friday night and seeing something fun.
