Shawn Levy is a Canadian film director, film producer, screenwriter, actor.

He was born in Montreal, Quebec, to a Jewish family. The names of his parents and what they do are not public knowledge.

Shawn Levy has two siblings, Rob and Debby. As a teenager, he attended Montreal’s St. George’s High School and trained in New York’s Catskills’ Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center.

Pursuing a career in acting, he attended Yale University’s performing arts program, graduating in 1989; while there, he grew interested in directing and later relocated to Los Angeles to study film directing.

In 1994, he got an MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Shawn Levy made his feature film directorial debut in 1997 with the family films Address Unknown and Just in Time.

Levy has been an executive producer on the Netflix original series Stranger Things since 2016. He helmed the third and fourth episodes of each season of the show.

He also directed All the Light We Cannot See, an upcoming Netflix limited series. He most recently directed Free Guy (2021), The Adam Project (2022), and the upcoming Deadpool 3 (2024) alongside Ryan Reynolds.