Lawrence Sher, (born February 4, 1970) is an American cinematographer and film director, best known for his works in comedy films and for his collaboration with director Todd Phillips, with his work on Joker (2019) earning him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
Early life and education
Sher was born to a Jewish family and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, where he attended and graduated in 1988 from Teaneck High School. His father, Paul, had been a doctor at New York University Medical Center, while his mother, Joan, was a teacher and taught at the Queens-based Lexington School for the Deaf. It was on a high school-sponsored trip to Paris that Sher first developed a love for photography, after his father convinced him to take a 35mm camera along with him on the trip. Sher has maintained his connections to Teaneck, staying in the basement of his aunt's home there during the filming of Garden State, where he was able to use love of his home state to make location shots there make it appear as what The Record described as a "verdant wonderland". He expressed great pride for his hometown of Teaneck and its diversity, recalling how he "spent a lot of time with an eclectic group of people. There's nothing homogenized about Teaneck even though you're in the middle of suburban New Jersey."
He attended Wesleyan University, where he had initially planned to pursue a career in medicine followed by his identical twin brother Andy, who later became a urologist. After taking a course on film history, Sher developed an immediate interest in cinema, recalling that "All I wanted to do was spend every waking moment learning about movies and cinematography." He decided on majoring in economics and graduated from Wesleyan in 1992. Sher also has worked on 2007's Dan in Real Life starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche and the 2009 release I Love You, Man with Paul Rudd. While Sher aspires to direct, he is in no rush given that "I don't think I’ve fulfilled all of my goals as a cinematographer yet".
In January 2020, Sher was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on the movie Joker, but lost to Roger Deakins for 1917.
Personal life
, Sher lives in Los Angeles, California, together with his partner Hema Patel and his 13-year-old son, Max, and daughter Matilda.