John Krasinski

John Burke Krasinski was born on October 20, 1979, in Newton, Massachusetts, the youngest of three sons born to Mary Clare Krasinski, a nurse, and Ronald Krasinski, an internist. His mother is of Irish ancestry and his father is of Polish descent, and Krasinski was raised Catholic. He made his first stage appearance as Daddy Warbucks in a sixth-grade school production of Annie, and during his senior year at Newton South High School, he co-starred in a satirical play written and cast by classmate B. J. Novak, with whom he would later work on The Office. He and Novak graduated from Newton South in 1997.

Before beginning his college studies, Krasinski spent six months in Costa Rica teaching English as a foreign language. While there, he rescued a woman from drowning after she was caught in a rip tide at a beach in Manuel Antonio National Park, crediting his mother's background as a lifeguard for the skills that helped him act. He went on to attend Brown University, where he studied English and playwriting and wrote an honors thesis titled "Contents Under Pressure," graduating in 2001. At Brown, he was a member of the sketch comedy group Out of Bounds and coached youth basketball at the Gordon School in East Providence, Rhode Island. He subsequently trained at the National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut.

In 2000, while still at Brown, Krasinski interned as a scriptwriter on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. After graduating, he relocated to New York to pursue acting, taking work as a waiter while appearing in commercials, guest-starring on television, and doing readings of off-Broadway plays. He starred in the play What the Eunuch Saw, written and directed by former college classmates Emily O'Dell and Isaac Robert Hurwitz. His stage work continued with a credit in The 24 Hour Plays in 2004, and he appeared on Broadway in 2009. He received a Theatre World Award in 2016.

Krasinski's screen breakthrough came in 2004 when he was cast as Jim Halpert in the NBC mockumentary sitcom The Office, an American adaptation of the British series. The show, which ran from 2005 to 2013, followed employees at the paper supply company Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Pennsylvania. To prepare for the role, Krasinski visited Scranton and interviewed employees at actual paper companies, and he personally shot the footage used in the show's opening credits. He appeared in every episode of the series, directed several installments including "Sabre," and also served as a producer. By the third season, he was earning approximately $100,000 per episode, four times his salary from the show's first two seasons.

Alongside his television work, Krasinski built a substantial film career. He appeared with Renée Zellweger and George Clooney in the 1920s-set period comedy Leatherheads in 2008, playing Princeton football star and decorated war hero Carter "the Bullet" Rutherford. In 2009, he made his directorial debut with Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, for which he also wrote the screenplay, adapted from David Foster Wallace's short story collection, and served as producer. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2009, where it received a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize. That same year he starred in Sam Mendes's comedy-drama Away We Go opposite Maya Rudolph, and appeared in Nancy Meyers's ensemble romantic comedy It's Complicated alongside Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin, a film that grossed over $219 million worldwide and won the National Board of Review Award for Best Ensemble Cast.

His subsequent film credits include Something Borrowed (2011), Promised Land (2012), Big Miracle (2012), in which he played news reporter Adam Carlson, and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016). He also directed and starred in The Hollars (2016) and IF (2024). In 2013, Krasinski provided voice work in Monsters University and established his production company, Sunday Night Productions. He co-created the reality competition series Lip Sync Battle, which ran from 2015 to 2019, earning three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Structured Reality Program.

Krasinski wrote and directed the 2018 horror film A Quiet Place, in which he also co-starred, and Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in recognition of the film. He followed it with the sequel A Quiet Place Part II in 2020. From 2018 to 2023, he played the title role in the Amazon Prime Video thriller series Jack Ryan, on which he also served as executive producer. He is married to English actress Emily Blunt, and the couple have two daughters.