John Lesher (producer)

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John Lesher (born May 12, 1966) is an American film producer best known for winning the Academy Award for Best Picture for Birdman (2014). He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Harvard University in 1988. He started as an agent at the Bauer-Benedek Agency and later became a partner at United Talent Agency (UTA). After 15 years at UTA, he moved to Endeavor, representing clients such as Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Alejandro Iñárritu, and Judd Apatow. In 2005 he became head of Paramount Vantage, Paramount Pictures’ arthouse label, which produced Babel (2006), No Country for Old Men (2007), and There Will Be Blood (2007). In 2008 he was named President of Paramount Pictures, overseeing projects including the Star Trek reboot and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He left Paramount in 2009 and started his own production company, Le Grisbi, which released several films between 2012 and 2014, including Birdman. The movie earned Lesher an Oscar for Best Picture, and he and his fellow producers won the Darryl F. Zanuck Award from the Producers Guild of America. He is married to Christina Liao.