Daniel Espinosa
Birthdate: Mar 23, 1977
Birthplace: Huddinge, Stockholms län, Sweden
Daniel Espinosa, the director of the dark-tinged Marvel Comics Universe movie Morbius, began his filmmaking career with the well-reviewed Babylon Disease (2003), a frenetic look at aimless youth in Espinosa’s home city of Stockholm. Four years later, he directed Outside Love (2007), a romantic drama about the ill-fated relationship between the Jewish father of a young boy and a Pakistani woman, and was nominated for three Danish Film Awards.
Espinosa’s first major international project that brought him to the attention of Hollywood was the crime thriller Snabba Cash (2010), starring Joel Kinnaman and based on Jens Lapidus. It won three Swedish Film Institute awards (the Guldbagge Awards).
This led to Daniel Espinosa’s Hollywood debut, Safe House (2012), a CIA thriller co-starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. Child 44 (2015) could have marked a major leap forward for Espinosa, directing a movie co-starring Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman, Paddy Considine, Jason Clarke, and Vincent Cassel and produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions.
Espinosa’s first movie to earn a worldwide gross above $100 million was Life (2017), a tense space drama co-starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, and Hiroyuki Sanada. Espinosa established himself as a reliable director of brawny, large-scale productions, thus setting himself up nicely for any prospective MCU project.
The Jared Leto starring Morbius became his next assignment, promising the director’s biggest profile to date. Espinosa is slated to helm two war movies set in the Middle East, the first with Gyllenhaal, the second based on Clinton Romesha’s Afghanistan war memoir titled Red Platoon.
Personal Details
Daniel Espinosa is a native of Sweden, born in the southwest Stockholm suburb of Huddinge. His parents are a Chilean father and a Swedish mother. He attended the Danish Film School. He married Nina Milerad in 2009 and divorced in 2015. His daughter, Alona, was born in 2015 to Swedish electronic house artist and producer Gabriella Borbély, known as “Bella Boo.”
Filmography
actor
Previous (10)
- 2023 | Madame Luna
- 2022 |
- 2017 |
- 2016 | Red Platoon
- 2015 | Child 44
- 2012 | Safe HouseasDirector
Safe House
A young CIA agent is tasked with looking after a fugitive in a safe house. But when the safe house is attacked, he finds himself on the run with his charge.
- 2010 | Easy Moneyas Director(as Daniél Espinosa)
- 2007 | Outside Love
- 2004 | Babylonsjukan
- 1973 | The Anarchists vs ISIS
Some Facts About Daniel Espinosa
Pass It Forward: Espinosa decided not to direct, but instead executive produce the sequel to Snabba Cash, also starring Joel Kinnaman, with the international title of Easy Money II: Hard to Kill (2012).
Impressive Company: For the documentary, Trespassing Bergman (2013), Espinosa joined a stellar international roster of filmmakers and actors visiting late filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s Swedish home: Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, Holly Hunter, Claire Denis, Wes Craven, Wes Anderson, Michael Haneke, Laura Dern, Ang Lee, John Landis, Kitano Takeshi, Woody Allen, Harriet Andersson, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu
