Jenée LaMarque (born February 2, 1980, in

West Covina, California West Covina is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located east of downtown Los Angeles in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, it is part of Greater Los Angeles Area, Greater Los Angeles. The population for the city was 109,501 ...

) is an American writer and director, known for ''

The Pretty One ''The Pretty One'' is a 2013 comedy drama film directed and written by Jenée LaMarque. The film stars Zoe Kazan, Jake Johnson, Ron Livingston, Sterling Beaumon and John Carroll Lynch. Plot Laurel and Audrey (Zoe Kazan) are identical twins. ...

'' (2013), ''Spoonful'' (2012) and '' The Feels'' (2018).

Career

LaMarque acted in local theatre while growing up in

Claremont, California Claremont () is a suburban city in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States, east of Los Angeles. It lies in the Pomona Valley at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census it had ...

. She got a degree in English with a creative writing emphasis in poetry from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Screenwriting proved to be the combination of these two interests. She took

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

extension classes in Screenwriting, before getting her MFA in Screenwriting from the

AFI Conservatory The AFI Conservatory is a private non-profit graduate film school in the Hollywood Hills district of Los Angeles. Students (called "Fellows") learn from the masters in a collaborative, hands-on production environment with an emphasis on stor ...

. At AFI she wrote ''The Pretty One''. LaMarque wrote and directed the short ''Spoonful'', which premiered at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

in 2012. The ''Pretty One'' script was on The Black List in 2011, which helped LaMarque enlist top talent like

Zoe Kazan Zoe Swicord Kazan (; born September 9, 1983) is an American actress and writer. She has acted in films such as '' The Savages'' (2007), '' Revolutionary Road'' (2008), and '' It's Complicated'' (2009). She starred in '' Happythankyoumoreplease'' ...

playing both twins, and

Jake Johnson Mark Jake Johnson Weinberger (born May 28, 1978) is an American actor. He has starred as Nick Miller in the Fox sitcom '' New Girl'' (2011–2018), for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Come ...

, who plays her love interest. LaMarque was a finalist for the Tribeca Film Festival's award "The Nora" in 2013. ''The Pretty One'' was nominated for the 2014 Best Movie By a Woman by the

Women Film Critics Circle The Women Film Critics Circle (WFCC) is a film critics and scholars association in the United States. Founded in 2004, WFCC was the first all-women group of this type in that country. WFCC has 75 members from the United States and foreign cou ...

. ''The Pretty One'' won Best Narrative Feature and Jenée won Best Director at the 2013 Savannah Film Festival. Jenée's second feature The Feels starring Constance Wu, Angela Trimbur and Ever Mainard premiered in competition at The 2017 Seattle Film Festival. The Feels’ Ever Mainard won Best Actress at the 2017 Outfest and won Best Narrative Feature at the 2017 NewFest.

Filmography

Film

Television

Personal life

LaMarque has been married to

Julian Wass Julian Wass (born November 10, 1981) is an American television writer, director, film composer, producer, and electronic musician from Los Angeles, California. He is the son of actors Janet Margolin and Ted Wass. Music for films Julian Wass first ...

since November 4, 2006. They have two children. She is Mexican American.

References