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Craig Mazin

American director and producer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ1138605
Source-derived summary

Craig Mazin (born April 8, 1971) is an American filmmaker. He is best known for creating, writing, and producing the HBO historical disaster drama miniseries Chernobyl (2019) and co-creating, co-writing, and executive producing the HBO post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us (2023–present), the latter alongside Naughty Dog studio head Neil Druckmann. For the former, he won Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Limited Series.

Prior to his dramatic work, Mazin was primarily known for his work on comedy films such as Scary Movie 3 (2003), Scary Movie 4 (2006), Superhero Movie (2008), The Hangover Part II (2011), The Hangover Part III, and Identity Thief (both 2013).

Early life

Craig Mazin was born on April 8, 1971, to Ashkenazi Jewish parents. He grew up in the city's Staten Island borough. He moved as a teenager to Marlboro Township, New Jersey, where he attended Freehold High School in nearby Freehold Borough. The school later inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2010. He graduated magna cum laude with a degree in psychology from Princeton University in 1992. His roommate during his freshman year was future Republican politician Ted Cruz, whom he has since described as a "huge asshole".

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Craig Mazin” as american director and producer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Craig, Mazin and American.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1971, 2019, 2023, 2003—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1971-04-08. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Craig, Mazin and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Craig Mazin”, the useful work is to connect “american director and producer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1138605. VIAF identifies the subject as 76522324. The Library of Congress control number is no98078690. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971, 2019, 2023 and 2003.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Craig Mazin”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Craig Mazin primary sources, Craig Mazin archive and Craig research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Craig Mazin”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Craig Mazin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.