Pierre Coffin

Pierre-Louis Padang Coffin (born 16 March 1967) is a French animator, director, producer, writer, and voice actor. He is best known for co-directing the first four installments in the Despicable Me franchise and being the co-creator and primary voice of all of the Minions, which won him the Kids Family Award at the 10th Seiyu Awards. He also received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Despicable Me 2.

Life and career Coffin was born on 16 March 1967 in France to Nh. Dini, an Indonesian novelist and Yves Coffin, a French diplomat. 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 had never considered a career in the arts, some talented friends of his, who were better at drawing than he, inspired him to work on improving his skills. 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.

Coffin directed Despicable Me (2010) and Despicable Me 2 (2013), with Renaud, Despicable Me 3 (2017) and the Despicable Me spin-off, Minions (2015) with Kyle Balda. Coffin provides the voice of the Minions in each installment of the Despicable Me and Minions franchise including the following films, Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) and Despicable Me 4 (2024). Coffin returned to direct Minions & Monsters, which was released in 2026.

In April 2023, Coffin was announced to be developing two webseries for Illumination that were planned to debut on TikTok and later on YouTube, titled Who's Who and Bones Story.

Personal life Coffin has two children. The Minions

Short films

Television

Accolades Films