Favreau was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, the son of Madeleine, an elementary school teacher who died of leukemia in 1979, and Charles Favreau, a special education teacher. His mother was Jewish (of Russian-Jewish descent), and his father is a Catholic of Italian and French-Canadian ancestry. Favreau attended Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony.\n', '

Favreau graduated from The Bronx High School of Science in 1984 and attended Queens College from 1984 to 1987, before dropping out. His friend from college, Mitchell Pollack, said that Favreau went by the nickname "Johnny Hack" because of his talent in the game Hacky Sack. He briefly worked for Bear Stearns on Wall Street before returning to Queens College for a semester in early 1988. He dropped out of college for good (a few credits shy of completing his degree), and in the summer of 1988, moved to Chicago to pursue a career in comedy. He performed at several Chicago improvisational theaters, including the ImprovOlympic and the Improv Institute.\n', '

While in Chicago, Favreau landed his first film role alongside Sean Astin as football tutor D-Bob in the sleeper hit Rudy (1993). Favreau met Vince Vaughn – who played a small role in this film – during shooting. The next year, he appeared in the college film PCU alongside Jeremy Piven, in the 1994 episode of Seinfeld titled "The Fire" he appeared as Eric the Clown. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he made his breakthrough in 1996 as an actor-screenwriter with the film Swingers, which was also Vaughn\'s breakthrough role as the character Trent Walker, a foil to Favreau\'s heartbroken Mike Peters. In 1997, he appeared on the television sitcom Friends, portraying Pete Becker – Monica Geller\'s millionaire boyfriend who competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) – for several episodes. Favreau made appearances in the sketch-comedy series, Tracey Takes On... in both 1996 and 1997.\n', '

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