Who

Indie darling Noah Baumbach is to film what Jonathan Lethem is to books—a Brooklynite who's built a career out of remembering what the borough was like before it became chic. His wife is Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Backstory

The son of novelist Jonathan Baumbach and ex-Village Voice movie critic Georgia Brown, Baumbach was 24 when he made his writing/directing debut with Kicking and Screaming, an indie-circuit hit starring Eric Stoltz and Parker Posey as aimless college grads. His next directorial effort, 1998's Mr. Jealousy, didn't get as kind a reception, and he all but dropped off the radar until 2004, when he co-wrote The Life Aquatic with Wes Anderson. The next year he caught Hollywood's attention—and earned an Oscar nomination for best screenplay—with sleeper drama The Squid and the Whale, a barely fictionalized account of his Park Slope upbringing and his erudite parents' nasty divorce. Both written and directed by Baumbach, the movie earned him billing as a latter-day, 718-style Woody Allen.

Recently

In late 2007 Baumbach released his first post-Squid movie, Margot at the Wedding. With a typically Baumbachian plot revolving around intellectuals, adolescents, and the outer boroughs, the lukewarmly-reviewed film starred Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, John Turturro, and—in their first collaboration with each other—Baumbach's wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh. Baumbach is now working with Wes Anderson on the script for The Fantastic Mr. Fox, an animated movie slated for a 2009 release, and he's also slated to direct the adaptation of Claire Messud's novel The Emperor's Children. In his spare time, Baumbach pens the occasional piece for the "Shouts & Murmurs" section of the New Yorker.

Personal

Baumbach married actress Jennifer Jason Leigh in 2005. The Baumbachs live in a co-op on lower Fifth Avenue. In February 2007, they paid $1.26 million to take over their next-door neighbor's apartment.

True story

Leigh made a notable off-screen contribution to Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale: She recommended casting of Owen Kline, the son of Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates, as the character Frank. Leigh and Cates have been pals since they co-starred in 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

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