Jeff Baena, Filmmaker and husband of actor Aubrey Plaza, passes away at age 47
Jeff Baena, writer and director behind independent films like Small time And horse girl, was found dead Friday at his home in Los Angeles. married with White lotus star Aubrey SquareBaena first made his mark in Hollywood as a co-screenwriter David O. Russell’2004 movie I love Huckabees. He is 47 years old.
A graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Jeff Baena began his career in Hollywood as a production assistant to a director. Robert Zemeckis (This), then pivot to work in an independent space. In 2011, he and Plaza began dating and the pair became frequent collaborators. Baena has directed her in films including Life after Beth and 2022 Spin around me.
“It is a wonderful experience to work with your partner in this way,” square he said about her work with Baena in 2017. “I’ve worked with Jeff since his first film. I’ve seen him develop and I’ve seen him mature. That’s a really special dynamic that we have. It’s hard at times, but it’s also really rewarding to do something together.”
Although he started out as a writer, Baena said that directing was always his goal. “That’s all I wanted to do,” he said in a 2014 interview. “It feels really comfortable and fun. I’ve been a writer for 12 years and it’s always been a means to an end, I never wanted to be a writer, I wanted to be a director so this was always my intention and I It felt right.”
Plaza and Baena quietly got married in 2021, with the former revealing the news in an Instagram post in which she calls Baena “my beloved husband.” In one appearance ABOVE The Ellen DeGeneres Show Later that year, Plaza joked that the wedding took place when “We were a little bored one night. We’re getting married and I’ll show you how: Onehourmarriage.com. It’s true, look it up.” A backyard ceremony in which the couple expressed their vows before an “altar of very fleeting love” decorated with “The truth of our love, little stones, smoke, fire. Things of that nature,” followed.
Dispatchers dispatched someone to Baena’s Los Angeles home around 10:30 a.m. yesterday, following a 911 call (according to TMZ) by Baena’s assistant. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office, Baena was unresponsive and was pronounced dead at the scene. No official cause has been determined or investigation into his death, officials said still open. However, TMZ quoted an anonymous source as saying that Baena died by suicide but that detail has not been officially confirmed as of the time of publication.
In addition to Plaza, Baena is survived by his mother Barbara Stern and stepfather Roger Stern, his father Scott Baena and stepmother Michele Baena, brother Brad Baena, and stepsister and stepbrothers Bianca Gabay and Jed Fluxman. As of the time of publication, Baena’s family has not commented publicly on his death, but Report deadline that it is “devastated and requests privacy at this difficult time.”
If you need emotional support or are in crisis, call the Suicide & Crisis Hotline on 988.
