Your Favreau-ite Celeb!

Hey Camp Fans!

We’re all fans of Jon Favreau whether we know it or not. He’s the director of such classic films as ‘Elf’, the ‘Iron Man’ trilogy, and ‘Zathura’. We already published a Blog post about him a few years back where we discussed his camp history at French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts, located on a private lake in the western area of the Catskill Mountains, just outside Hancock, New York.

But that last post only scratched the surface about this guy. Let’s learn more about Mr. Favreau.

Unhappy with a bunch of dead-end jobs, Jon one day quit his day job and hit the road for Chicago to pursue his new dream of becoming an improvisational comedy star. In a short time, he got a job at the well-respected comedy club the Second City (which has been mentioned in other celebrities’ posts). He wasn’t employed as a performer, however, but as a dishwasher. It was a START!

Once he got his foot in the acting door and had one or two movies under his belt, Jon thought he’d be better off in the acting business if he lost some weight. He put himself on a strict diet that resulted in losing 80 pounds! Unfortunately, casting folks wanted the bigger guy they’d seen in previous movies, not this suddenly trim, sporty actor. It cost him a number of jobs.

In his previous post, I explained that Jon got his first taste of fame and recognition for the short role he played on the hit sitcom, ‘Friends’. He played a millionaire boyfriend to Courteney Cox’s character for a number of episodes. Ironically, he had a chance to play another romantic interest to Courteney’s character and one of the six main friends—Chandler Bing. The part was originally offered to Jon, actually, but he turned it down which was probably for the best. After all, who can imagine anyone as Chandler beside Matthew Perry? 

With an impressive resume, it’s about to get even more impressive since Jon’s been hired as showrunner for a new, live-action Star Wars show coming out for Disney’s streaming service called ‘The Mandalorian’. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about this star director and his acting career that blossomed into so much more. And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John