Born Adam Spiegel in Rockville, Md., in 1969, the young man who would become Spike Jonze began working in the skateboarding industry as a filmmaker, writer and photographer. A groundbreaking music video director, Jonze created award-winning music clips for such artists as The Beastie Boys, Bjork, R.E.M., Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim.

His feature film acting debut was the surreal Being John Malkovich (1999), written by Charlie Kaufman. Around the same time, Jonze helped create MTV's extreme stunt show "Jackass." He also found time to act in such films as The Game (1997) and David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999).

Jonze's second feature, Adaptation (2002), was also written by Kaufman, who received an Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay. Jonze's next project is scheduled to be a live-action adaptation of the classic Maurice Sendak children's story Where the Wild Things Are (2005).