Damon Lindelof Biography

Damon Lindelof was born Damon Laurence Lindelof, on April 24, 1973, in Teaneck, New Jersey, to David Lindelof and Susan Klausner, into a middle class family. His father worked as a bank manager while his mother was a teacher. His father comes from Scandinavian roots while his mother is a Jewish by heritage.

He had no family history in art, despite that he grew fond of writing when he was a teenager. He also gives much of the credit of developing an artistic side to his high school years at Teaneck High School. He mentioned that his school had amazing diversity and he had friends from various races, cultures and ethnicities, which somehow opened the horizon of his mind necessary to become a writer.

At the age of 14, he had his first tryst with the entertainment industry when he got a job at a movie theater in New Jersey, called Route Four Cineplex Odeon Tenplex. By then he had grown fond of watching films and as per him, this job was no less than a blessing. He worked there three days a week handing out tickets to people and showed them their seats. There were many movies playing at the theatre at the same time and in his free time, he watched those movies.

By the time he graduated high school, he had become confirmed about his passion of working in the film industry. He enrolled into the New York University and received a formal training in filmmaking. While he was at the university, he also joined a band named Petting Zoo. Following his graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career

Straight out of the college, Damon Lindelof began working at the well-established film studios such as Paramount, Alan Ladd and Fox Studios, as a script reviewer. In the meantime, he also kept writing his own scripts.

A breakthrough happened in 1999, when a script written by him, titled ‘Perfectionists’ was selected as a semi-finalist for the Nicholl Fellowship. This little success gave him leverage into the industry and he ended up working on television.

One of his first projects as a screenwriter was the drama series Wasteland, which began airing in October 1999. The series was centered on issues such as youth and homosexuality, but the series was cancelled after airing 3 episodes, due to low ratings. However, 10 more episodes of the series were aired in 2001.

In the same year, Damon Lindelof also served as a writer on the anthology series titled ‘Undressed’, which was a critically successful series, centered more or less on the same themes as ‘Wasteland’.

In 2004 came the massive break for Damon Lindelof, which established him as an extremely popular young screenwriter. He served as one of the key men behind the conception of the show and served as a writer and an executive producer, along with being a show-runner on the show. The series premiered in 2004 and was an instant success, garnering praises for introducing a unique style of storytelling and creating an ensemble of huge cast successfully.

The series turned out to a massive success instantly and was among the most successful American series’ during its six years run. In 2005, ‘Lost’ won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. Apart from that, the writing team of ‘Lost’, headed by Damon, won the Writing Guild of America Award for the writing in the first two seasons of the series. Damon received nominations for several more Writers Guild of America awards, further indicating the immense critical success the show had achieved.

Damon also took a fresh approach for the promotion of the series as him and his co-creator remained in constant touch with the fans, discussing several fan-theories and trivia about the show. The series ran for six hugely successful seasons. However, the ending of the series brought a lot of criticism aimed at the writers, mostly Damon. He denied addressing most of the critiques.

Towards the end of series, it was said that Damon and J.J. Abrams were working together on the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel ‘The Dark Tower‘. Damon denied the rumours and later served as a co-producer on the 2009 action film titled ‘Star Trek’.

He had also served as a comic book writer, for the comic-book miniseries titled ‘Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk’ for Marvel comics.

In the early 2010s, he got involved in the writing of the series ‘Once Upon a Time’, for which he received no credit. He also served as a co-writer for the Ridley Scott directed science fiction film titled ‘Prometheus’. He also co-wrote the screenplays of the films titled ‘Star Trek: Into Darkness’ and ‘World War Z’

He served as a co-writer on the science fiction film titled ‘Tomorrowland’, which was released after a long time in 2015. The film received average reviews at the box office and was also a very average box office success.

In 2014, he served as a co-writer of the supernatural drama series titled ‘The Leftovers’. Based on a novel of the same name, the series featured the concept of ‘sudden departure’, which resulted in the sudden disappearance of 2 percent of the human population. The series follows the life of the disappeared people’s families and how the world had entered into a chaotic state after the supernatural phenomenon.

The series received a massive critical acclaim owing to its story, direction, performances and music. While it was not as commercially successful, mostly owing to a slow pace narrative, it was universally praised for its depth and bold approach. The series ran for three seasons and has overtime developed a cult following.

In 2018, Warner Bros studios announced that they were working on a ‘Watchmen’ television series, based on the Alan Moore graphic novel of the same name. The series premiered in 2019 and garnered a widespread critical acclaim, winning a Primetime Emmy Award for the Outstanding Limited Series. There were talks about a second season, but Damon said that they had written the first season to be a complete story in itself and he will go with a completely different storyline for the second season, if it ever gets made.

In 2020, he served as the writer and producer of the horror thriller film titled ‘The Hunt’. The film received average success at the box office and received negative reviews from the critics. The film was mostly criticized for its political themes.

Damon Lindelof stated that he had been a huge fan of Stephen King, the esteemed author of many successful horror novels. He has also said that he was a voracious reader and had inherited the love for writing from his father. His father, even after Damon became an established writer, never told Damon that he had written a lot of unpublished scripts and books.

Damon Lindelof married Heidi Mary Fugeman in 2005. The couple has one child together.

Damon has openly talked about his long-time battle with depression.

Damon used to be very active on Twitter, which he deleted in 2013, after controversy erupted after his tweet on the 2012 Aurora Shooting.