Darren Aronofsky

Darren Aronofsky previously dated actress Rachel Weisz. Their relationship began sometime in the summer of 2001. By 2005, they were engaged. Their son, Henry, was born on May 31, 2006, in New York City. The family resided in the East Village in Manhattan. However, in November 2010, they revealed that they had been living separately for months but would continue raising their son together.

Aronofsky started dating actress Jennifer Lawrence in September 2016, right after they started working together in ‘mother!’. The relationship eventually ended in November 2017.

He is also an environmental activist and his concerns for environmental issues have been reflected in his films such as ‘Noah’ and ‘mother!’. He is the recipient of both the Humane Society of the United States’ and PETA’s Humanitarian Awards and serves as a board member of both The Sierra Club Foundation and The School for Field Studies.

Born on February 12, 1969, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, Darren Aronofsky is one of the two children of educators Charlotte and Abraham Aronofsky. He has a sister named Patti, who is a TV producer. His family was culturally Jewish, even if his parents were not particularly religious. He attended Edward R. Murrow High School.

As a youth, he accompanied his parents to Broadway performances, which first incited in him a curiosity for the show business. Initially, he was interested in biology and received training at The School for Field Studies in Kenya in 1985 and Alaska in 1986. During this period, he developed an interest in ungulates and decided to attend a school in Kenya.

He spent months backpacking through Europe and the Middle East before enrolling at Harvard University in 1987, to pursue a degree in social anthropology. Influenced by noted filmmakers, such as Akira Kurosawa, Roman Polanski, Terry Gilliam, Shinya Tsukamoto, Hubert Selby, Jr., Spike Lee, Satoshi Kon, and Jim Jarmusch, Aronofsky’s love for filmmaking truly blossomed in Harvard.

For his senior thesis, Aronofsky wrote and directed the short film ‘Supermarket Sweep’, which became one of the finalists in the 1991 Student Academy Awards. In the following year, he earned his MFA degree in directing from the AFI Conservatory. Furthermore, he received AFI Conservatory’s Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal.

Darren Aronofsky’s first short film was ‘Fortune Cookie’, made some months prior to ‘Supermarket Sweep’ in 1991. He continued to make short films after graduating from Harvard. ‘Protozoa’ was made in 1993 and ‘No Time’ in 1994. He also made a video segment for the video game ‘Soldier Boyz’, which was released in 1997.

He made his feature film debut with the 1998 release ‘Pi’. Starring Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, and Ben Shenkman, the psychological and complex thriller covers a range of themes, including religion, mysticism, and the relationship of the universe with mathematics, and revolves around a gifted mathematician and his search for mathematical regularity in his imperfect, irrational existence.

Premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, ‘Pi’ earned Aronofsky the Best Director award there. It also became the first film that was made available for online downloading.

In his next movie, ‘Requiem for a Dream’ (2000), he continued with surrealistic and psychological themes and used drug-induced hallucinations as a major plot point. It is based on Hubert Selby, Jr.'s novel of the same name and stars Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, and Jennifer Connelly.

While the film ‘Requiem for a Dream’ barely made money at the box office, it was received positively by the critics, and for her performance, Burstyn was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Darren Aronofsky’s directorial venture, the 2010 psychological horror ‘Black Swan,’ is based on a story by Andres Heinz, who later contributed to the screenplay for the film. The film stars Natalie Portman in an Oscar-winning role and its plot centres on a production of Tchaikovsky's ballet ‘Swan Lake’ by a prestigious New York City ballet company. Aronofsky was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director but lost it to Tom Hooper (‘The King's Speech’).