BALDONI
Justin

• 1. Career

Justin Louis Baldoni is an American actor and filmmaker. He is best known for portraying Rafael Solano on The CW satirical romantic dramedy Jane the Virgin (2014–2019) as well as directing the films Five Feet Apart (2019), Clouds (2020) and It Ends with Us (2024).

Career

In 2008, Baldoni wrote, produced, and directed his first music video that was selected and won him his first "Audience Choice Award" at Dawn Breakers International Film Festival.

In 2012, Baldoni created a digital documentary series, My Last Days, a show about living – as told by the dying. The show eventually became one of the most-watched documentary series' streamed online. The second season of My Last Days aired on CW and third season was released in the winter of 2018. On the heels of that success Baldoni founded Wayfarer Entertainment, a digital media studio focused on disruptive inspiration. In December 2018, Baldoni spoke at the annual End Well Symposium about why he believes that thinking about our death can help us live better.

From 2014 to 2019, Baldoni played Rafael Solano in the CW show Jane the Virgin. In May 2016 he launched a time-lapse video app for pregnant women and new mums called Belly Bump.

In July 2017, Variety announced that Baldoni was developing a male talk show through his media company Wayfarer Entertainment. The show, entitled Man Enough, is described as a disruptive panel series that explores what it means to be a man today. In an interview, Baldoni described the reason he created the show. "Man Enough really came about because I wanted to take a dive into what it really means to be a man, and this question of 'do we have it right?'" The show includes prominent men like Matt McGorry and Javier Muñoz. In August 2017, TED announced Baldoni would be a speaker at the annual TEDWomen Conference.

Baldoni directed and produced CBS Films' Five Feet Apart, starring Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson, and based on an original script by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis. The film was released on March 15, 2019, and chronicles the lives of two teenagers living with cystic fibrosis.

He directed and produced Clouds, a film depicting the life of musician Zach Sobiech with Warner Bros. On May 14, 2020, it was announced Disney+ had acquired distribution rights to the film from Warner Bros., in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the film industry. It was released on October 16, 2020. He is also scheduled to direct, produce, and star in It Ends with Us, based on the novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover.

In 2021, Baldoni released a book under the same premise as his previous talk show and TED Talk titled Man Enough: Undefining my Masculinity. He began a podcast series under the same name with co-hosts Liz Plank and Jamey Heath. A children's version of the book Boys Will be Human was released in October 2022.