Craig Mazin (born April 8, 1971) is an American screenwriter and film director. He is best known for creating the HBO miniseries Chernobyl, based on the Soviet nuclear disaster of the same name in 1986, and co-creating the HBO series The Last Of Us, based on the video game of the same name created by Neil Druckmann. His work earned him two Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special and Outstanding Limited Series. Mazin is also known for his extensive work on the comedy genre, namely Scary Movie 3, Scary Movie 4, Superhero Movie, Identity Thief, and the two sequels to The Hangover Trilogy. Biography Mazin was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family. He was raised on Staten Island, New York. He moved to Marlboro Township, New Jersey when he was a teen and attended Freehold High School which inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2010. Mazin graduated magna cum laude with a degree in psychology from Princeton University in 1992. His freshman-year roommate at Princeton was Ted Cruz, now the junior U.S. senator from Texas and a former Republican candidate for the 2016 presidential election year. He openly despises Cruz on a personal level and frequently disparages him on Twitter, calling the U.S. senator "a huge asshole". Mazin is married with two children. He supported Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Career Mazin began his entertainment career as a marketing executive with Walt Disney Pictures in the mid-1990s, where he was responsible for writing and producing campaigns for studio films. He made his screenwriting debut with 1997's sci-fi comedy RocketMan, co-written with then-writing partner Greg Erb. He has since written movies such as Senseless, Scary Movie 3, Scary Movie 4 and Identity Thief. Mazin has directed two films: 2000's low-budget superhero film The Specials, which he also produced, and the 2008 superhero spoof Superhero Movie, which he also wrote (he also made a cameo appearance in this movie as a janitor). Since 2006, Mazin has collaborated with director Todd Phillips on several occasions. Mazin co-wrote both Hangover sequels, parts II and III, and executive produced School for Scoundrels. In 2004, Mazin was elected to the board of directors of the Writers Guild of America, West. He did not seek re-election, and his term expired in September 2006. Along with