Mini biography

Cord Jefferson _{(1982, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.)}

Cord Jefferson is an American writer and director. After studying at the College of William & Mary he started a career in journalism and wrote for numerous publications before becoming an editor at Gawker until 2014.

Jefferson transitioned to working as a writer for television. He wrote for the Comedy Central late-night series The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore (2015–2016), the Netflix comedy series Master of None (2017), and the NBC sitcom The Good Place (2017–2019).

For his work on the HBO limited series Watchmen (2019), he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series or Movie.

He made his feature directorial debut with the satire American Fiction (2023), for which he received a nomination for Best Picture and won Best Adapted Screenplay at the 96th Academy Awards.

As a writer, Jefferson got his start in journalism. Among his first jobs were writing for both Stereohyped and MollyGood.

He spent two years as an editor at Gawker, from 2012 to 2014. He also wrote for publications including USA Today, Huffington Post, The Root, and The New York Times Magazine.

Jefferson started his television career in 2014 as a staff writer for the Starz comedy-drama series Survivor's Remorse before writing for the comedy Central late night series The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore from 2015 to 2016. Jefferson then became a story editor and consulting producer for Aziz Ansari's Netflix comedy series Master of None (2017) and the Mike Schur-created NBC sitcom The Good Place (2017–2019), for which he received Writers Guild of America Award nominations.

For his work on the HBO limited series Watchmen (2019), he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series or Movie for the episode, "This Extraordinary Being".

In the middle of 2020, Jefferson worked on a TV series about his time writing for Gawker. He is developing the show for Apple TV+. Later in that year, he signed an overall deal with Warner Bros. TV.

In 2021, Jefferson served as a writer and supervising producer for the HBO limited series Station Eleven. He made his feature directorial debut with the satirical film American Fiction (2023), which won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Director - Selected filmography

1. American Fiction (2023)