Byron Howard

Biography:

American animator, character designer, story artist, film director, producer, and screenwriter Byron P. Howard was born on December 26, 1968. Bolt (2008), Tangled (2010), Zootopia (2016), Encanto (2021), and Zootopia 2 (2025) are among the Walt Disney Animation Studios films that he has directed. He was nominated for four Academy Awards, two of which he won for Encanto and Zootopia. At Disney MGM Studios, Howard started his work as a tour guide. As a child, Howard wrote to Master Animator Frank Thomas, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, about his desire of working for the company. He quickly started his internship at the Disney Studio and was employed in 1994 to work as an animator on movies like Brother Bear, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Pocahontas.