Early life

Abrams was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, the son of television producer Gerald W. Abrams (born c. 1939) and executive producer Carol Ann Abrams (née Kelvin; 1942-2012). His sister is screenwriter Tracy Rosen. He attended Palisades High School. After high school, Abrams planned to go to film school rather than an academic college but eventually enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College, following his dad's advice: "it's more important that you go off and learn what to make movies about than how to make movies."

Career

Early career

Abrams's first job in the movie business started at 15 when he wrote the music for Don Dohler's 1982 film Nightbeast. During his senior year at college, he teamed with Jill Mazursky to write a feature film treatment. Purchased by Touchstone Pictures, the treatment was the basis for Taking Care of Business, Abrams's first produced film, which starred Charles Grodin and James Belushi. He followed with Regarding Henry, starring Harrison Ford, and Forever Young, starring Mel Gibson. He also co-wrote with Mazursky the script for the comedy Gone Fishin' starring Joe Pesci and Danny Glover.

In 1994, he was part of the "Propellerheads" with Rob Letterman, Loren Soman, and Andy Waisler, a group of Sarah Lawrence alums experimenting with computer animation technology who were contracted by Jeffrey Katzenberg to develop animation for the film Shrek. Abrams worked on the screenplay for the 1998 film Armageddon with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay. That same year, he made his first foray into television with Felicity, which ran for four seasons on The WB Network, serving as the series' co-creator (with Matt Reeves) and executive producer. He also composed its opening theme music.

2000s

Under his production company, Bad Robot, which he founded with Bryan Burk in 2001, Abrams created and executive-produced ABC's Alias and is co-creator (along with Damon Lindelof and Jeffrey Lieber) and executive producer of Lost. He later co-wrote the teleplay for Lost's third season premiere "A Tale of Two Cities." As with Felicity, Abrams also composed the opening theme music for Alias and Lost. In 2001, Abrams co-wrote and produced the thriller Joy Ride, and wrote an unproduced screenplay for a fifth Superman film in 2002. In 2006, he served as executive producer of What About Brian and Six Degrees, also on ABC. Abrams directed and wrote the two-part pilot for Lost and remained active producer for the first half of the season. That same year, he made his feature directorial debut in 2006 with Mission: Impossible III, starring Tom Cruise. Abrams spoke at the TED conference in 2007.

In 2008, Abrams produced the monster movie Cloverfield. In 2009, he directed the science fiction film Star Trek, which he produced with Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof. While it was speculated that they would be writing and producing an adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series of novels, they publicly stated in November 2009 that they were no longer looking to take on that project. In 2008, Abrams co-created, executive produced, and co-wrote (along with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) the FOX science fiction series Fringe, for which he also composed the theme music. He was featured in the 2009 MTV Movie Awards 1980s-style digital short "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions", with Andy Samberg and Will Ferrell, in which he plays a keyboard solo. NBC picked up Abrams's Undercovers as its first new drama series for the 2010-11 season. However, it was subsequently cancelled by the network in November 2010.

In 2008, it was reported that Abrams purchased the rights to a New York Times article "Mystery on Fifth Avenue" about the renovation of an 8.5 million dollar co-op, a division of property originally owned by E. F. Hutton & Co. and Marjorie Merriweather Post, for six figures and was developing a film titled Mystery on Fifth Avenue, with Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot Productions, and comedy writers Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky to write the adaptation. According to the article, a wealthy couple Steven B. Klinsky and Maureen Sherry purchased the apartment in 2003 and live there with their four children. Soon after purchasing the apartment, they hired young architectural designer Eric Clough, who devised an elaborately clever "scavenger hunt" built into the apartment that involved dozens of historical figures, a fictional book and a soundtrack, woven throughout the apartment in puzzles, riddles, secret panels, compartments, and hidden codes, without the couple's knowledge. The family didn't discover the embedded mystery until months after moving into the apartment. After Abrams purchased the article, Clough left him an encrypted message in the wall tiles of a Christian Louboutin shoe store he designed in West Hollywood.

2010s

He wrote and directed the Paramount science fiction movie Super 8, while co-producing with Steven Spielberg and Bryan Burk; it was released on June 10, 2011. Abrams directed the sequel to Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, released in May 2013. On January 25, 2013, The Walt Disney Studios and Lucasfilm officially announced Abrams as director and producer of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the seventh entry in the Star Wars film saga. Disney/Lucasfilm also announced that Bryan Burk and Bad Robot Productions would produce the feature.

Following the news that he would direct The Force Awakens, speculation arose as to Abrams's future with Paramount Pictures, with whom he had released all of his previously directed feature work, and which had a first-look deal with his Bad Robot Productions. Paramount vice-chairman Rob Moore stated that Abrams will continue to have a hand in the highly unsuccessful Star Trek and Mission: Impossible franchises going forward. Abrams directed, produced, and co-wrote the screenplay for, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, working alongside Lawrence Kasdan, following the departure of co-writer Michael Arndt. Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened in theaters on December 18, 2015. It grossed over 2 billion dollars at the box office, making him one of only two directors to achieve that amount in a single film.

Abrams announced at the 2013 D.I.C.E. Conference that Bad Robot had made a deal with Valve Corporation to produce a film based on either the video game title Portal or Half-Life. On September 9, 2013, it was announced that Abrams would release a novel, S., written by Doug Dorst. The book was released on October 29, 2013.

Personal life

Abrams is married to public relations executive Katie McGrath and has three children. He resides in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California. He is Jewish and his wife is Roman Catholic, but he sometimes takes his children to religious services on the holidays.

Filmography

Film

Year	Film	Director	Producer	Writer	Actor	Notes
1982	Nightbeast					Composer Sound effects
1990	Taking Care of Business			Yes
1991	Regarding Henry		Yes	Yes	Yes	Delivery Boy Co-producer
1992	Forever Young		Yes	Yes		Executive producer
1993	Six Degrees of Separation				Yes	Doug
1996	The Pallbearer		Yes
	Diabolique				Yes	Video Photographer #2
1997	Gone Fishin'			Yes
1998	Armageddon			Yes
1999	The Suburbans		Yes		Yes	Rock Journalist
2001	Joy Ride		Yes	Yes
2006	Mission: Impossible III	Yes		Yes		Feature directorial debut Also digital artist
2008	Cloverfield		Yes
2009	Star Trek	Yes	Yes
2010	Morning Glory		Yes
2011	Super 8	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol		Yes
2013	Star Trek Into Darkness	Yes	Yes
2014	Infinitely Polar Bear		Yes			Executive producer
2015	Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation		Yes
	Star Wars: The Force Awakens	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Vocal cameo
2016	10 Cloverfield Lane		Yes
	Star Trek Beyond		Yes			Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Credited as				Notes
		Writer	Director	Executive Producer	Composer
1998-2002	Felicity	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Co-creator; writer (17 episodes), director (2 episodes), theme music co-composer
2001-2006	Alias	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Creator; writer (13 episodes), director (3 episodes), theme music composer
2004-2010	Lost	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Co-creator; writer (3 episodes), director (2 episodes), theme music composer
2005	The Catch	Yes		Yes		Co-creator; Pilot
2006-2007	What About Brian			Yes
	Six Degrees			Yes
2006	Jimmy Kimmel Live!		Yes			Episode guest directed: "Episode #4.269"
2007	The Office		Yes			Episode directed: "Cocktails"
2008-2013	Fringe	Yes		Yes	Yes	Co-creator; writer (6 episodes), theme music composer
2009	Anatomy of Hope		Yes	Yes		Director; Pilot
2010	Undercovers	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Co-creator; writer (3 episodes), director (1 episode), theme music composer
2011-present	Person of Interest			Yes	Yes	Theme music composer
2012	Alcatraz			Yes	Yes	Theme music composer
	Shelter			Yes		Pilot
	Family Guy					Guest star; episode: "Ratings Guy"
2012-2014	Revolution			Yes	Yes	Theme music composer
2013-2014	Almost Human			Yes	Yes	Theme music composer
2014	Believe			Yes
2015	Dead People			Yes		Pilot
2016	11.22.63			Yes
	Westworld			Yes
	Roadies			Yes

Music videos

Year	Program	Credit	Notes
2009	"Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions"	Performer

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Nominated work	Result
1999	Razzie Award	Worst Screenplay	Armageddon	Nominated
2002	Emmy Award	Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series	Alias	Nominated
2004	PGA Award	Best Drama		Nominated
2005	ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards	Top TV Series	Lost	Won
	Directors Guild of America	Best Director		Nominated
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series - Pilot		Won
		Outstanding Drama Series		Won
		Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series - Pilot		Nominated
2006	ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards	Top TV Series		Won
	PGA Award	Best Drama		Won
	Writers Guild of America	Dramatic Series		Won
2007	Saturn Award	Best Director	Mission: Impossible III	Nominated
	BAFTA Award	Best International	Lost	Nominated
	PGA Award	Best Drama		Nominated
	Writers Guild of America	Dramatic Series		Nominated
2008	Emmy Award	Outstanding Drama Series		Nominated
2009	Emmy Award	Outstanding Drama Series		Nominated
	Writers Guild of America	Long Form	Fringe	Nominated
		New Series		Nominated
2010	Emmy Award	Outstanding Drama Series	Lost	Nominated
	Saturn Award	Best Director	Star Trek	Nominated
	Empire Awards	Best Director		Nominated
	PGA Award	Theatrical Motion Picture		Nominated
2012	Saturn Award	Best Director	Super 8	Won
		Best Writing		Nominated
2013	PGA Award	Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television		Won
2014	Saturn Award	Best Director	Star Trek Into Darkness	Nominated
2016	Saturn Award	Best Director	Star Wars: The Force Awakens	Pending
	Empire Awards	Best Director		Won

[ Source: Wikipedia ]