Jeff Baena, the director and screenwriter who co-wrote the dark comedy “I Heart Huckabees,” and directed films including “Life After Beth” and “Horse Girl,” died Friday at a residence in Los Angeles. He was 47 years old.
His death was confirmed by a media representative, who did not reveal the cause. Los Angeles police responded Friday morning to a death investigation at an address listed on Mr. They have.
Mr. Baena often suggested dark thematic elements with humor in his works. There were zombies and romance in “Life After Beth” (2014), and inappropriate nuns in “The Little Hours” (2017).
She was married to actress Aubrey Plaza, who starred in “Life After Beth,” about a woman who comes back from the dead after being bitten by a deadly snake, and starred in “The Little Hours,” and “Spin Me Round. ” (2022), which Mr. Baena directed and co-wrote with actress Alison Brie.
Mr. Baena also co-wrote the 2004 film “I Heart Huckabees,” a dark comedy starring Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law, Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin and Mark Wahlberg. The film, about a naturalist who hires “survival detectives,” was not a box office success but developed a cult following for its quirky drawings and characters.
“My parents were divorced, so I'm sure that the trauma of the divorce helped me to have a sense of humor,” said Mr. Baena in an interview he had with Fresh Fiction, a YouTube channel, in 2022.
He decided to become a filmmaker at the age of 11, he told Fresh Fiction, when he was browsing the television channels for Stanley Kubrick's “A Clockwork Orange.” The film so impressed him that he asked his father to take him to a video rental store, where they rented Federico Fellini's 1963 film “8 ½.”
“I was always drawn to weird movies,” he told Fresh Fiction. He said he was exposed to “a lot of things that I think are a little bit left in the middle, so that became normal for me,” adding, “I got it.”
Jeffrey Baena was born on June 29, 1977, and grew up in Miami. He graduated from New York University in 1999, where he majored in film and minored in medieval and renaissance studies, according to the New Yorker.
He later co-wrote “I Heart Huckabees” with director David O. Russell. The film “captures the desperation of the liberal-left with surprisingly good humor,” critic Manohla Dargis wrote in her 2004 New York Times review of the movie.
Mrs. Dargis added that it's “a comedy of dialectics, where two opposing sides duke it out like a wounded couple, but it's nothing if not deeply sincere.”
In addition to directing and writing “Life After Beth” and “The Little Hours,” Mr. Baena wrote and directed the films “Joshy” (2016), and “Horse Girl” (2020), which he co-wrote with Ms. Brie.
His wife, Mrs. Plaza, is best known for her role as April Ludgate on the television series “Parks and Recreation,” where she played a moody, sarcastic and reluctant office worker. She recently starred in films including “Megalopolis” (2024) and “Emily the Criminal” (2022).
In addition to Ms. Plaza, survivors include her mother, Barbara Stern, and stepfather, Roger Stern; his father, Scott Baena, and stepmother, Michele Baena; brother, Brad Baena, and step-sister Bianca Gabay and step-father Jed Fluxman.
Jack Begg research contributed.
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