Early Life
Mirkin was born and raised in Philadelphia and graduated from Northeast High School in 1975. His father was a computer engineer until his death in 1960. Mirkin's older brother Gary worked as a television engineer for the Philadelphia NBC affiliate. Throughout his childhood, Mirkin had an interest in film, and explored both writing and filming. Mirkin has described himself as a "nerd" and was often in trouble as a child because he was "in another world". At high school, he felt the teaching was "too slow" and was allowed by his teachers to "skip class two to three days a week."
Mirkin intended to pursue a career in electrical engineering, which he saw as a more stable employment opportunity than writing or film making. He took a course at Philadelphia's Drexel University which offered six months of teaching followed by a six month internship at the National Aeronautics Federal Experimental Center. Mirkin found the experience to be monotonous and unenjoyable and chose to abandon this career path. He decided that "making no money doing something I loved was going to be better than making a good living doing something I didn't", so took "an enormous chance on show business" and moved to Los Angeles, California. He attended film school at Loyola Marymount University, and graduated in 1978.
Mirkin lists Woody Allen and James L. Brooks as his writing inspirations and Stanley Kubrick and the work of the comedy group Monty Python as developing his "dark sense of humor." He considers Mike Nichols's film The Graduate to be what inspired him to enter directing.
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