Jennifer Arnold

May 06, 1979

Jennifer Arnold is an Emmy-nominated director who was raised a drama-geek / skateboard kid in Santa Barbara, California. Her summers were spent living off the grid, without electricity, in the Trinity Alps and Alaskan wilderness with her extended family. She became a world traveler at age sixteen; moved to Kenya at nineteen and continues to work and travel abroad. She credits her story sense to her adventurous upbringing. In the episodic space Arnold has most recently directed "Based on a True Story," "P-Valley" and the pilot for "XO Kitty." which went number one on Netflix within 24 hours. Her other television credits include "Emily in Paris," "American Horror Story," "Younger," "Shameless," "The L-Word: Generation Q," "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," and "The Last Man on Earth among others. Her independent and documentary work has premiered at prestigious festivals around the world, including four appearances at Sundance. Arnold's feature documentary A Small Act (HBO) won the Humanitas Prize, a NAMIC Vision Award, and was nominated for the Best Documentary Emmy. Her other documentaries include The Diplomat (ESPN), Tig (Netflix), and Thicker Than Water, about Greg Louganis for ESPN's 30 for 30 shorts series. She has been an advisor at the Sundance labs and CNEX workshops in Asia and traveled to Kazakhstan with American Film Showcase. She attended UCLA's Graduate Film School and studied African History as an undergrad at UCLA and University of Nairobi. She lives in Los Angeles with her wife, the esteemed ASC cinematographer Patti Lee.