John Burke Krasinski (; born October 20, 1979) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his role as Jim Halpert on the NBC sitcom The Office (2005–2013), where he was also a producer and occasional director. He directed, co-wrote and co-starred in the 2018 horror film A Quiet Place, for which Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He has since written and directed the sequel A Quiet Place Part II (2020).
Krasinski has appeared in the films Leatherheads (2008), Away We Go (2009), It's Complicated (2009), Something Borrowed (2011), Promised Land (2012), and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016). He directed and starred in the comedy-drama films Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009), The Hollars (2016) and IF (2024). From 2018 to 2023, he played the title character in the Amazon Prime Video thriller series Jack Ryan, and served as an executive producer for it.
Krasinski has also performed voice-over work in animated and documentary films, including in Monsters University (2013). He established a production company, Sunday Night Productions, in 2013. For co-creating the reality show Lip Sync Battle (2015–2019), he received three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Structured Reality Program.
John Burke Krasinski was born on October 20, 1979, in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. His mother, Mary Claire (née Doyle), is a nurse, and his father, Ronald Krasinski, is an internist. He is the youngest of their three children, all of whom are boys. His mother is of Irish ancestry, and his father is of Polish descent. He is Catholic.
Krasinski made his stage debut as Daddy Warbucks in a sixth-grade school production of the musical Annie. He co-starred in a satirical play written and cast by his future The Office co-star B. J. Novak when they were high school seniors. Krasinski and Novak graduated from Newton South High School in 1997.
Before entering college, Krasinski taught English as a foreign language instructor in Costa Rica for six months. While there, he saved a woman from drowning when she was caught in a rip tide at a beach in Manuel Antonio National Park. Krasinski said that what he learned from his mother, who was a lifeguard, helped him save the woman.
Krasinski attended Brown University, where he studied English and playwriting, and wrote an honors thesis, "Contents Under Pressure". He graduated from Brown in 2001. At Brown, he was a member of the sketch comedy group Out of Bounds and helped coach youth basketball at the Gordon School in East Providence, Rhode Island. He then attended the National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut.
In 2000, Krasinski interned as a scriptwriter on the show Late Night with Conan O'Brien. After graduating from Brown University, he moved to New York to pursue acting. He appeared in commercials, guest-starred on television shows, and did readings of off-Broadway plays while working as a waiter. He starred in the play What the Eunuch Saw, written and directed by his former college classmates Emily O'Dell and Isaac Robert Hurwitz.
2005–2009: Breakthrough with The Office and directorial debut
Krasinski's breakthrough came in 2004 when he was cast in the NBC sitcom The Office, an American adaptation of the successful British TV series. In the series, a mockumentary about life at a mid-sized paper supply company, he played Jim Halpert, an intelligent and mild-mannered sales representative and, in later seasons, co-manager of the paper distribution company Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Krasinski and Jenna Fischer's characters were also the series' love interests.
To prepare for the role, Krasinski visited Scranton and interviewed employees at actual paper companies. He shot the Scranton footage used for the show's opening credits. He appeared in every episode of the series and also directed several, including "Sabre". For his work in the series (2005–2013), he earned approximately $100,000 per episode of the third season of The Office, four times his salary for the previous two seasons.
In 2006, Krasinski co-starred in Jason Carvey's independently produced, direct-to-DVD heist comedy A New Wave with Andrew Keegan and Lacey Chabert. In 2007, he co-starred with Anna Faris and Danny Masterson as Brevin in Gregg Araki's independent stoner comedy Smiley Face (2007). Reviews were largely positive for the film. Later that year, he starred in the romantic comedy License to Wed (2007) with Mandy Moore and Robin Williams. Despite negative critical reception of the film, it emerged as a commercial success. Krasinski guest-starred in a number of television series including Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Without a Trace, Ed, American Dad!, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He also co-starred in films including Kinsey, Duane Hopwood, Jarhead, The Holiday, Shrek the Third, For Your Consideration and Dreamgirls.
In 2008, Krasinski appeared with Renée Zellweger and George Clooney in the latter's directorial venture Leatherheads (2008), a period comedy about the early years of professional American football. He portrayed Carter "the Bullet" Rutherford, Princeton University's college football star and a decorated hero of the First World War. MTV.com praised his acting, describing him as "an actor who's able to project both boyish warmth and intellectual concern" while also stating that he "manages the considerable feat of holding the screen opposite Clooney without melting in the heat of [Clooney's] trademark movie-star mega-wattage."
In 2009, Krasinski made his directorial debut in the comedy-drama film Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. He wrote the screenplay for the film based on David Foster Wallace's collection of short stories, played a minor role in it and also served as producer. The film premiered on January 19, 2009, at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize and received mostly positive reviews. Film critic A.O. Scott wrote that "though this experiment doesn't quite succeed, there's enough intelligence and insight in this movie to make it worth the attempt" while Elizabeth Weitzman from New York Daily News felt that "Krasinski deserves credit for having the ambition to adapt material as difficult as David Foster Wallace's short stories."
The same year, he starred in the comedy-drama Away We Go with Maya Rudolph, directed by Sam Mendes. It follows a couple searching North America for the perfect community in which to settle down and start a family. The film received positive reviews from critics. In his review, Michael Rechtshaffen from The Hollywood Reporter, said "terrific performances make this tender if slight little film worth the trip". His third 2009 role was in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy It's Complicated as part of an ensemble cast that included Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Lake Bell and Alec Baldwin. The film was a box office success, grossing over $219 million worldwide. It won the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures Awards for Best Ensemble Cast for the film.
2011–2017: Further feature film, television, and theater work
In 2011, Krasinski co-starred with Ginnifer Goodwin, Kate Hudson and Colin Egglesfield in the romantic comedy Something Borrowed, based on Emily Giffin's novel of the same name. Despite the film receiving negative reviews, his performance was widely praised. Krasinski was also one of the top candidates to play the role of Steve Rogers/Captain America in the superhero film Captain America: The First Avenger (2011).
Krasinski starred opposite Drew Barrymore in the biopic film Big Miracle (2012), which covers Operation Breakthrough, the 1988 international effort to rescue gray whales from being trapped in ice near Point Barrow, Alaska. The film saw him play Adam Carlson, a news reporter. The same year, Krasinski starred in Ry Russo-Young's independent drama Nobody Walks with Olivia Thirlby and Rosemarie DeWitt. In the film, Krasinski plays Peter, a sound-designer, husband and father of two who starts developing romantic feelings for a young artist while collaborating on her first art film. His performance was praised by critics. Peter Debruge of Variety wrote: "Krasinski is such an appealing actor that his likability serves to complicate Peter's behavior in interesting ways." Nobody Walks premiered in Competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won a special Jury Prize.