Jonathan Kolia Favreau, born October 19, 1966, in Queens, New York, to a father of French-Canadian, German, and Italian ancestry and a mother from a Russian Jewish family, is an American filmmaker, actor, and director. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and enrolled at Queens College in 1984 but dropped out a few credits shy of his degree after briefly working at Bear Stearns on Wall Street. Nicknamed 'Johnny Hack' by college friends for his hacky sack prowess, Favreau moved to Chicago in the summer of 1988 to pursue comedy, inspired by a Second City performance featuring Chris Farley, where he began working in improv, cartoons, and commercials. Favreau broke into acting with roles in Rudy (1993), PCU (1994), Swingers (1996, which he also wrote), Very Bad Things (1998), Deep Impact (1998), The Replacements (2000), Daredevil (2003), The Break-Up (2006), Four Christmases (2008), Couples Retreat (2009), I Love You, Man (2009), People Like Us (2012), and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), among others. He transitioned successfully into directing and producing, notably with Iron Man (2008), which kickstarted the Marvel Cinematic Universe, followed by additional MCU films, Chef (2014), and The Mandalorian series.