As a Film Production graduate, he started off as a production assistant to Robert Zemeckis, an American filmmaker, working on a number of films.
Later, Jeff moved on to work as an assistant editor for director/writer David O. Russell. Almost after a year an half of collaborative work, Baena suffered a minor car accident that injured one of his eyes. Well, the incident proved out to be a productive one as Russell began discussing story ideas with Baena, primarily with a motive to keep up Baena's spirit during his recovery period, but ended up finalizing four scripts together.
One of the four was I Heart Huckabees. It was directed into a movie by Russell in 2004. I Heart Huckabees was the first script of Jeff Baena as a co-writer to be ever made into a movie.
For almost 10 years time, Baena shifted his focus completely into writing and wrote for many movies including the zombie comedy Life After Beth. The fantasy/drama also happened to be his directorial debut although he had initially planned Joshy to be his first directorial venture. Well, Joshy never got into production phase as the actor and also the collaborator Adam Pally had to back out for unknown reasons.
The latest direction for Baena was The Little Hours which was released in 2017. He was the writer as well as the director for this particular movie. The Little Hours was a multi-character movie with lots of appearance from actors like Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Kate Micucci, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon and many others.
Though there is no recorded salary for the scripts he has written per movie his first script, co-written with his friend David O. Russell, I Heart Huckabees (2004) collected $20.1 million at the box office. Likewise, his directorial debut Life after Beth (2014) collected $254,881.
His latest work The Little Hours (2017) collected $1.6 million at the box office. Baena, who has been working for long in Hollywood, has an estimated net worth of $19 million.
Jeff Baena is of White ethnicity and belongs to American nationality. Baena has been romantically linked with Hollywood actress Aubrey Plaza who has publicly admitted to being bisexual. Jeff Baena and Aubrey Plaza have been dating each other since 2011. They live together in an apartment in Beverly Hills, California. and often work together.
Though their affair is the talk of the town, there are no news of them being engaged. Further, they have also not addressed the plans of getting married. His girlfriend, who is Hollywood actress, is estimated to have $3 million of net worth.
