Kaufman, Charlie (1958– )

US screenwriter and producer. He is known for his imaginative, offbeat, highly original films, including his breakthrough success Being John Malkovich (1999), and other surreal comedies such as Adaptation (2002) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). He has frequently collaborated with director Spike Jonze.

His plots are chaotic and convoluted, combining reality and fantasy, and filled with angst. In Being John Malkovich an out-of-work puppeteer finds a secret room that leads inside the head of US actor John Malkovich. In Adaptation, Kaufman wrote himself into the script in his attempt to adapt the book The Orchid Thief to film. Other screenwriting credits include Human Nature (2001) and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), which was the directorial debut of US actor George Clooney.

He grew up in Massapequa in Long Island, New York, and West Hartford, Connecticut. He briefly attended Boston University before transferring to New York University to study film. After moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota, after graduation, where he worked for the circulation department of the Star Tribune newspaper and the art institute, he moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1990. There he began his writing career for television, contributing to the comedy series Get a Life (1990), Ned and Stacy (1995), and The Dana Carvey Show (1996). His self-proclaimed influences include US novelist Flannery O'Connor, Irish dramatist Samuel Beckett, and Austrian novelist Franz Kafka.