Pierre Coffin

Pierre-Louis Padang Coffin (born 16 March 1967) is a French animator, voice actor, director, producer, and writer best known for co-directing four films in the Despicable Me franchise and being the voice of the Minions, which won him the Kids Family Award at the 10th Seiyu Awards. Coffin was born on 16 March 1967 in France to Yves Coffin, a French diplomat, and Nh. Dini, an Indonesian novelist. He has a sister, Marie-Claire. During his childhood, they often moved across Asia, living in Cambodia and Japan, before settling in a Parisian suburb in the 1970s. Growing up, their father forbade them watching television, considering it too passive. Instead, Coffin drew, read, and listened to music a lot. Although he never considered a career in arts, some talented friends, who were better than him at drawing, inspired him to improve his skills. Between 1985 and 1988, he studied cinema at the Paris-Sorbonne University. While attending his military service, he withdrew to take the entrance exam for the Gobelins animation school in Paris. Passing, he studied there the 2D course from 1990 to 1993. Then he moved to Amblin, the 2D London-based facility, where he worked for one year as a junior animator on the Steven Spielberg-executive-produced We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story. He then started as a freelance animator in the French CGI studio Ex Machina where he worked as an animator and eventually animation supervisor. Pierre Coffin's directorial career began with a short film named Pings in 1997. He then started to collaborate by doing commercials with Passion Pictures Paris and Mac Guff. He created the characters Pat & Stan for the titular TF1 TV series. In 2010 he completed, with Chris Renaud, the feature CGI animated movie Despicable Me for Universal.