Brad Bird is a Montana-born filmmaker who became one of the best-known animation directors in the world.

Brad Bird was born Philip Bradley Bird in Kalispell, Montana, on September 24, 1957. As a kid he loved drawing and animation, and after a tour of Walt Disney Studios at about age 11 he told people he would someday work there, then spent two years making his own 15-minute cartoon short that impressed Disney animators and led to mentoring from legendary artist Milt Kahl. Bird went on to study animation at the California Institute of the Arts and later worked on TV shows like The Simpsons before writing and directing the animated movies The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. The Incredibles and Ratatouille each won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and Bird has since directed other big films, including Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Tomorrowland, and Incredibles 2. Bird often tells young artists that trying hard things-even projects that might fail-is how you grow, saying that you should not always "play it safe" but reach for challenges at the edge of your abilities.