Jeff Baena, the indie filmmaker behind “Life After Beth,” “Horse Girl” and other films and the husband of Aubrey Plaza, died Friday at the age of 47, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office confirmed. His body was discovered at a Los Angeles residence.
TMZ, citing unnamed law enforcement, reported Baena’s death was a suicide.
Baena began his career as an assistant to Robert Zemeckis, but got his first big break co-writing “I Heart Huckabees” with David O. Russell after first working as an editor assistant to the “Fighter” filmmaker. Baena’s first solo debut was 2014’s “Life After Beth,” a zombie comedy starring Aubrey Plaza and Dane DeHaan that he wrote and directed. The film got into the Sundance Film Festival and premiered there before securing distribution from A24.
An indie filmmaker through and through, Baena was a fixture at Sundance, premiering all but one of his films there. His movies often mixed comedy with drama and carried a light improvisational style that lent a conversational quality to the dialogue. They included 2016’s comedy-drama “Joshy,” starring Thomas Middleditch as a man who’s goaded into still having his bachelor party while grieving over the suicide of his fiance; 2017’s 17th century-set comedy “The Little Hours” starring Plaza, Alison Brie and Dave Franco; and 2020’s “Horse Girl,” which he co-wrote with Brie.
The filmmaker’s last film, 2020’s “Spin Me Round,” was another screenplay collaboration with Brie and was released by IFC Films and AMC+.
Baena is survived by his wife, Plaza, with whom he’d been in a relationship since 2011. She appeared in nearly all of his films and the two kept their marriage private until 2021.
