Biography

Matt Shakman is an American film, television, and theatre director and former child actor. He produced and directed WandaVision and has directed episodes of The Great, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Fargo, and Game of Thrones. He is the artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, California.

Shakman was born and raised in Ventura, California. His Jewish father and Catholic mother maintained a "relatively secular household", their interfaith marriage being a source of conflict with Shakman's Jewish paternal grandmother. After acting as a child, starting with commercials and landing a series regular role on Just the Ten of Us, he stepped away to attend The Thacher School in Ojai.

Shakman went on to attend Yale University, where he graduated with an art history and theatre double major. It was at Yale that Shakman became interested in theatre, going on to direct a number of stage productions.

After university, Shakman lived in New York City for several years before permanently moving to Los Angeles.

As a child actor, Shakman played Graham "J.R." Lubbock, Jr., in the Growing Pains spin-off series Just the Ten of Us (1988–1990). His other television acting credits include The Facts of Life, Highway to Heaven, Diff'rent Strokes, Night Court, Good Morning, Miss Bliss, and Webster. He also appeared in the films A Night at the Magic Castle (1988) and Meet the Hollowheads (1989).

Shakman is the founder and artistic director of the Black Dahlia Theatre (BDT) in Los Angeles, which was named one of "a dozen young American companies you need to know" by American Theatre Magazine.

Since 2002, Shakman has mostly been directing for television. Among his credits are Succession, Mad Men, Six Feet Under, The Boys, The Great, House M.D., Fargo, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (also executive producer).

Shakman directed the episodes "The Spoils of War" and "Eastwatch" for the seventh season of the HBO series Game of Thrones in 2017. In August of the same year, Shakman was appointed as the new artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

In 2017, TriStar Pictures announced that Shakman would direct its upcoming "live-action/hybrid" film adaptation of The Phantom Tollbooth [until in 2018, Carlos Saldanha replaced Shakman due to scheduling conflicts].

In 2021, Shakman directed and executive produced the Marvel Studios miniseries WandaVision for Disney+. Later that year, it was revealed that Shakman would direct a film in the Star Trek franchise. In late August 2022, Shakman was in early talks to direct the Marvel Studios film The Fantastic Four, set to release in 2025, replacing Jon Watts, who exited the project to take a break from superhero films. On August 26, 2022, Shakman exited the Star Trek film, citing "scheduling issues", before being confirmed as the Fantastic Four director just weeks later. When asked why he chose to do Fantastic Four over Star Trek, Shakman said: "[M]ovies have different journeys and momentums, and schedules are a little bit mercurial, and so when the Fantastic Four opportunity came up, it was just too hard to pass up and to go back home to Marvel, a place that I worked on WandaVision at, with those people who are wonderful collaborators."

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