Justin Simien
Birthdate: May 7, 1983
Birthplace: Houston, Texas
Justin Simien is a rising, talented filmmaker who has jumped from indie filmmaking into the big-budget arena of Disney movies. From 2006 to 2015, Simien worked in the short film and music video formats and was director/writer/editor on three short films, a producer on another, an editor only on two other shorts, a director only on one, and an actor in another.
Simien made a smashing feature debut as director/writer/producer of Dear White People (2014), an acclaimed satire co-starring Tyler James Williams, Tessa Thompson, Kyle Gallner, Teyonah, and Dennis Haysbert, winning a special jury award for breakthrough talent in Sundance’s American Dramatic Feature competition, and ultimately spawning a 40-episode 2017-to-2021 Netflix series, for which Simien was a creator, director, writer and executive producer.
Simien opted for streaming (via Hulu) for his second feature, the satirical horror movie, Bad Hair (2020), with Elle Lorraine, Jay Pharoah, Vanessa Williams, Blair Underwood, Lena Waithe, Laverne Cox, and Usher, which premiered at the Sundance film festival. Unlike his previous features, Simien’s third was his first studio project and one not written or produced by him—Disney’s second movie adaptation of Haunted Mansion (2023), starring LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jared Leto, and budgeted at $157.8 million.
Personal Details
Justin Simien was born and raised in Houston, Texas, by his mother Anna Simien; his father died early in Simien’s childhood. Raised in the Catholic Church, Simien developed a passion for performing arts and was a student at Houston’s Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Simien attended Chapman University in Orange, California, where he majored in filmmaking. In 2014, Simien openly identified as gay.
Filmography
actor
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- 2023 | Haunted Mansion
Haunted Mansion
A single mom named Gabbie hires a tour guide, a psychic, a priest and a historian to help exorcise her newly bought mansion after discovering it is inhabited by ghosts.
Some Facts About Justin Simien
His Own Man: Justin Simien has rejected the label that he’s “the next Spike Lee,” by responding that he is “the next Justin Simien,” while expressing respect for Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), and citing two of his key influences as Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen.
