Jon Favreau was born on October 19, 1966 in Queens, New York. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and attended Queens College and worked on Wall Street before moving to Chicago to pursue a career in stand-up comedy.

While in Chicago, Favreau landed his first film role, as the pudgy tutor D-Bob in the sleeper hit Rudy (1993). Favreau would meet Vince Vaughn—who also played a role in this film—during the shooting of this film. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he made his breakthrough in 1996 as an actor-screenwriter with the film Swingers—a film that certainly was "money," and which also brought Vaughn much fame as the glib and over-confident Trent Walker, a perfect foil to Favreau's heartbroken Mike Peters.

The next year, he appeared in the college film PCU alongside Jeremy Piven, and also stepped into the world of television to play a guest role in several episodes of the sitcom Friends. He rejoined Piven in 1998 as part of Very Bad Things (1998), and later appeared in Love & Sex (2000), co-starring Famke Janssen. Favreau got some screen time as a lawyer in the 2003 blockbuster Daredevil (2003). He guest-directed an episode of the college dramedy Undeclared in 2001.

Also in 2001, he made his (film) directorial debut with another self-penned screenplay, Made. Made once again teamed him up with his Swingers co-star Vince Vaughn but it somehow lacked the spark that made Swingers so interesting and enjoyable. In the fall of 2003, he scored his first financial success as a director, the hit comedy Elf starring Will Ferrell.

Jon now has a TV series called Dinner for Five which airs on the cable TV channel IFC.

He has a son, Max, born July 25, 2001, and a daughter Madelaine born April 2003.

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