Dean Parisot Biography
Writer/director Dean Parisot started out mostly in television. He directed more TV pilots than he cares to remember and countless episodes of various TV series, including but not limited to Northern Exposure, Curb Your Enthusiasm, ER, The Tick and Monk (the US version of course).
When Parisot made his feature-film directorial debut with 1998's Home Fries, starring Drew Barrymore and Luke Wilson, he already had an Oscar at home. Indeed, he shared an Academy Award with his friend, comedian Steven Wright, for their 1988 short The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, which won Best Live Action Short in 1989.
He re-teamed with Home Fries producer Mark Johnson for 1999's sci-fi spoof/Homage Galaxy Quest, in which the cast of a Star Trek-like TV series is abducted by aliens and forced to fight an intergalactic war. The film became a huge success and has countless fans.
Parisot then remade the 1977 comedy caper Fun with Dick and Jane (2005), starring Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni, followed eight years later by the action-comedy sequel RED 2(2013) starring Bruce Willis and John Malkovich.
Over the next few years, he turned his attention to the small screen, directing episodes of popular series such as Justified, Grace and Frankie, Good Girls and Santa Clarita Diet, the latter which found him working with Drew Barrymore again.
He returned to the big screen at the helm of the long-awaited third movie in the Bill & Ted series, titled Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020), which sees Keanu Reeves returning as Ted "Theodore" Logan.
In 1986 Dean married editor Sally Menke, who is the mother of his two children, Lucas and Isabella. Unfortunately, Sally died of hyperthermia in Los Angeles on September 27, 2010, while hiking during a heat wave.