Benjamin Joseph Novak Biography

Benjamin Joseph Novak is an American Emmy-award-winning actor, comedian, and writer best known for starring in Inglourious Basterds (2009), Saving Mr. Banks (2013) and The Founder (2016). He rose to fame after starring in the TV series

Benjamin Joseph Novak Career

After graduating from Harvard, Novak relocated to Los Angeles, California, and started performing stand-up in bars. On October 10, 2001, he gave his first stand-up routine live at the Hollywood Youth Hostel. He was listed as one of the “Ten Comedians To Watch” by Variety in 2003. He wrote for the brief series Raising Dad on The WB. Novak appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Comedy Central’s Premium Blend.

Novak made her acting debut on television with MTV’s Punk’d. During the second season of the show in 2003, he was Ashton Kutcher’s main sidekick, pulling practical jokes on Hilary Duff, Múa, Usher, and Rachael Leigh Cook. A stock photo of Novak made its way into the public domain and was allegedly used on a number of international items, including a specific kind of Calvin Klein cologne in Sweden. Quentin Tarantino’s critically acclaimed 2009 war film Inglourious Basterds, John Lee Hancock’s 2013 period drama Saving Mr. Banks, which chronicles the creation of the 1964 film Mary Poppins, and Hancock’s 2016 historical drama The Inventor, which centers on the inventor of McDonald’s, all featured minor appearances for Novak.

The movies Unaccompanied Minors (2006), Knocked Up (2007), Reign Over Me (2007), The Internship (2013), and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) are among the others in which he has acted. In The Smurfs (2011) and The Smurfs 2 (2013), he provided the voice of Baker Smurfs. He has made brief appearances on Community and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in addition to starring in a few episodes of The Mindy Project and The Newsroom. Additionally, he served as a consultant producer for The Mindy Project’s inaugural season.

The Premise is a half-hour anthological series that he created, directed, and executive produced. It debuted on FX in 2021. He created and directed the mystery thriller Vengeance, which he also starred in. Filming started in March 2020, however, it wasn’t finished until January 2021 because of the COVID-19 epidemic. He would develop and executive produce Young People for HBO Max, it was announced in May 2020.

Benjamin Joseph Novak Education

He went to Brown Middle School and the Greater Boston Solomon Schechter Day School. During the summers of his sixth, seventh, and ninth grades, he attended Camp Ramah in New England, Massachusetts. Alongside future The Office costar John Krasinski, he attended Newton South High School, where they both graduated in 1997. Together with Krasinski, Novak co-wrote a satirical play and edited The Lion’s Roar, one of the school publications.

After earning his degree from Harvard University in 2001, Novak participated in the Harvard Lampoon. His honors thesis was based on the Hamlet movies, and he majored in English and Spanish literature. Aside from the Lampoon, he and fellow Harvard student B. J. Averell periodically produced and participated in a variety show called The B.J. Show.

Benjamin Joseph Novak Age

Novak was born on July 31, 1979, in Newton, Massachusetts, United States. He is 44 years old as of 2023, and he celebrates his birthday on the 31st of May every year.

Benjamin Joseph Novak Height and Weight

Novak stands at a height of 5 feet 9 inches tall (1.75m) and weighs 73 kgs (160 lbs).

Benjamin Joseph Novak Family

Newton, Massachusetts’s Newton-Wellesley Hospital is where Novak was born. Author William Novak and Linda (née Manaly) are his parents. The Big Book of Jewish Humor was co-edited by his father, who also ghostwrote memoirs for Magic Johnson, Nancy Reagan, Lee Iacocca, and other celebrities. Lev Novak and composer Jesse Novak are the two brothers of Novak.

Benjamin Joseph Novak Wife/ Mindy Kaling

Since their 2004 meeting on the set of The Office, Novak and Mindy Kaling have been well associated. After being brought on as writers for the well-known comedy, the two became part of the main cast as characters who would eventually become lovers. When Novak and Kaling became real lovers who were “never really dating” and “never really not dating,” life mimicked art. Since their early days on The Office, their relationship status has altered, but when Novak gave Kaling the Norman Lear Achievement Award at the Producers Guild Awards, he brought attention to their highs and lows.

Beginning his remarks, Novak expressed his admiration for Kaling’s capacity to tolerate everything, including the speed at which the Happy Birthday song was sung. In addition, he revealed aspects of their complex connection that neither of them had before discussed in public, including the intense passion they felt when they were together. He grinned at Kaling in the crowd and added, “We were reckless idiots in love with each other, and the two of us would argue about all of these things forever.” He thought back to their fights in the writer’s room and how, when things got heated, they moved it to AOL Instant Messenger.

Benjamin Joseph Novak Net Worth

Novak has an estimated net worth of about $10 Million – $20 Million which he has earned through his career as an actor.

Benjamin Joseph Novak Salary

Novak earns a salary of about $100,000-$500,000.

Benjamin Joseph Novak The Office

When executive producer Greg Daniels heard Novak’s opening joke at a comedy club, he wanted to do something with him. After that, Novak was chosen to play Ryan Howard, (The Office) who makes his television debut as a temporary worker at Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Throughout his professional life, Novak’s character experiences highs and lows, and he has a sporadic romantic involvement with Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling). Along with Kaling, Greg Daniels, Michael Schur, and Paul Lieberstein, Novak served as the show’s original writer and producer.

Though Novak is credited with writing fifteen episodes, two of them “Diversity Day” and “Local Ad” were nominated for an Emmy by the Writers Guild of America. According to news sources on July 21, 2010, Novak had agreed to stay on the show for its seventh and eighth seasons. He would direct two episodes and become an executive producer halfway through Season 7 under the revised rules. After the “New Guys” episode of the ninth season of The Office, he left the show, but he later made a brief appearance in the last episode.

He acknowledged that he had received an offer to become the showrunner for Season 9, but he turned it down because he felt his fire for the job had burned out and it was time to go on to other endeavors in a 2021 podcast interview on Dax Shepard’s show. From 2007 to 2011, Novak and the other writers and producers of “The Office” received five nominations in a row for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. In an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer from June 2009, Novak talked about how he and his classmate John Krasinski from Newton South High School shared in The Office’s success.

Benjamin Joseph Novak The Founder

Novak stars in the series The Founder as McDonald’s president and chief executive Harry J. Sonneborn. Sonneborn proposed to Ray Kroc that the land on which McDonald’s restaurants would be constructed would be owned by Kroc and leased to the franchisee. McDonald’s grew rapidly as a result of this business strategy; real estate transactions were managed by a newly established company called “McDonald’s Franchise Realty Corp.” The “Sonneborn model” is still in use today by the company and may have been the most significant financial choice made in its past. 99% of McDonald’s assets and around 35% of its worldwide sales are represented by the company’s real estate holdings, which total $37.7 billion on its balance sheet.

Benjamin Joseph Novak Saving Mr. Banks

One half of the renowned songwriting team, the Sherman brothers, who wrote the film’s catchy songs, is portrayed by Novak as Robert Sherman. In addition, Schwartzman’s musical career perfectly complemented Richard’s abilities, letting Novak, who had never played music before outside of a junior high performance of “Oklahoma!”, take a backseat. “Since Bob Sherman was a terrible vocalist in real life, there was no pressure on me as a musician… That’s the reason Bob just kind of tapped his hands along while Richard sat at the piano and sang. I could only genuinely overachieve as a result.

Benjamin Joseph Novak Movies and TV Shows

1. Celebrity Jeopardy
2. Home Movie: The Princess Bride
3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
4. Arthur
5. The Newsroom
6. Community
7. The Mindy Project
8. The Office
9. Premium Blend
10. Vengeance
11. The Founder
12. The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Benjamin Joseph Novak Book

Alfred A. Knopf, a publishing house, said on April 11, 2013, that it had inked a two-book, seven-figure contract with Novak. The first book would be a collection of fiction pieces reminiscent of Woody Allen. One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories, a collection of 64 stories, was released on February 4, 2014, and it remained on the New York Times Best Sellers Hardcover Fiction List for six weeks.

Additionally, Novak inked a contract with Penguin, a children’s book publisher, and penned The Book Without Pictures, which was published on September 30, 2014. It was at #10 in September 2020 and had been on the New York Times Best Seller Picture Books List for 174 weeks as of January 2021, including 34 weeks at #1. Writing the children’s book, self-described lifelong bookworm Novak remarked that “to me, there is no more meaningful, important or exciting rule to introduce to children than the power of the written word.”

Benjamin Joseph Novak Social Media Platform

Novak is very active on his Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook page, and he has 1.3M followers on Twitter, 1.3M followers on Instagram, and 393k followers on Facebook

Twitter