An award winning screenwriter for comedy feature, How The Cookie Crumbles, and short films of various genres, Hard As It Gets, Bingo, and Wake Up, Darren Haskins has set his mind to more than one job to bring a movie to life. Under Bad Dingo Productions he directed the dark comedy political thriller horror, Hard As It Gets(2022) that screened in multiple film festivals across the U.S, and under Pickle n Giggle Productions co-wrote and co-starred in the award winning comedy web series, Three Birds(2021). He worked his way up starting from self produced IPhone films, Will Works(2019) and Dark Night Rider Eats(2019), to a higher level of production in his most recent spiritual Dramedy short film, Where Is My Mind?(2023), which he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in that earned him multiple Best Actor awards and a top 15 finish in the Mometu audience choice short film contest. To keep the momentum going he will soon release his self produced dark comedy short film, Cookie Demon(2025).
Hailing from the city of the stars, Los Angeles, California, and now residing in the growing city of Las Vegas,NV, Darren is a true entertainer at heart. Whether it’s on the sports stage, in front or behind the camera, at work, or in a room with friends and family he is the fun and positive energy we all want to be around when we’re feeling down.
Once he got a taste of professional acting as a teen landing background roles on projects such as Disney’s Even Stevens and a Pep Boys commercial he knew he could eventually develop a career in the film industry . Being inspired from comedy greats such as Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, Dave Chappelle, and Eddie Murphy, Darren takes pride in the characters he is presented with and creates for his stories. As he became more involved in creating films, acting took a backseat after his time at the New York Film Academy in Studio City, CA when he learned how to write screenplays. He improved his craft attending Second City Hollywood and The Groundlings Theatre, learning under former lead Mad TV writer, John Crane, for comedy sketches.
In addition to his passion of storytelling and acting he loves to spend time with his family, friends, pets, travel, listen to music, watch and play sports, and discuss about the wild world we live in all while having a laugh. He believes if you’re not laughing you’re not living, and with that mindset can help move himself forward through all the critics coming his way. Those near and dear to Darren describe him as hard working, caring, confident, respectable, reliable, and a goofball, but it is his determination and resiliency to keep improving to achieve the goals he sets his mind to.
Other Bad Dingo produced short films include The Pill (2018), Cheater (2019), The Ghost That Never Was(2019)