Byron Howard

Byron P. Howard (born December 26, 1968) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, animator, story artist and occasional voice actor at Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is best known as the co-director of "Bolt" (2008), "Tangled" (2010), and "Zootopia" (2016), and a supervising animator on "Lilo & Stitch" (2002) and "Brother Bear" (2003). He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for "Tangled" and won an Oscar for "Zootopia".
Early life and education.
Howard was born in Misawa, Japan, and raised in both the outskirts of Philadelphia and Issaquah, Washington, United States, in a middle-class family. He attended Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
Career.
Howard began his career at Disney in 1994, working as an animator on films including "Pocahontas", "Mulan", "Lilo & Stitch" and "Brother Bear". He was nominated for a 2003 Annie Award for Character Animation for "Brother Bear".
The first film Howard directed was the animated Disney film "Bolt", which was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In his role as co-director of the film with Chris Williams, Howard focused on character design and animation. Howard went on to direct the animated Disney films "Tangled" (2010, co-directed with Nathan Greno) and "Zootopia" (2016, co-directed with Rich Moore). He and Greno also co-directed and wrote the animated short "Tangled Ever After", which features supporting characters from "Tangled" and showed in theaters before the 2012 3D re-release of "Beauty and the Beast".
, Howard is working with Lin-Manuel Miranda on an original animated film. Howard will co-direct the film, tentatively titled "Encanto", alongside "Zootopia" co-director Jared Bush and Charise Castro Smith, while Miranda will write songs for the project, which will center on a girl from a magical Colombian family who lacks magic herself.
In 2009, Howard became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
Personal life.
In the Fusion documentary "Imagining Zootopia", Howard mentioned he is openly gay and has been married since 1988.