As co-creator, lead writer and a supervising producer of the critically acclaimed mini-series
Band of Brothers for
HBO in 2001, Jendresen was one of the recipients of that year's
Emmy Award for "Outstanding Miniseries", which he shared with
Tom Hanks and
Steven Spielberg, among others. Jendresen also shared an Emmy nomination for that show in the category of "Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special". The show also resulted in a
Golden Globe Award for "Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television", and 20 other awards, including the
Peabody Award. As a writer/ producer for film, his current projects include
The Mariner (directed by
Christopher McQuarrie for FOX);
Mission: Blacklist (directed by Rodrigo Cortés);
Saint-Ex (directed by
Christopher McQuarrie);
Aloft (starring
Robert Redford);
Solo (directed by
Antonio Banderas); and an adaptation of Walter Tevis's
The Man Who Fell to Earth (directed by
David Slade). Earlier film projects include
Star Trek: The Beginning (Paramount),
Sublime, starring
Tom Cavanagh and
Kathleen York,
Otis and
The Big Bang (starring
Antonio Banderas and
Sam Elliott), and
Ithaca - an adaptation of William Saroyan's
The Human Comedy (directed by
Meg Ryan and starring
Sam Shepard and
Hamish Linklater). As a writer, producer, and showrunner for television, his current projects include
Special, a series based on documentary filmmakers of the 1960s (with
Marti Noxon, for the
National Geographic Channel); a series based on the stories of the
French Foreign Legion (with
Thomas Bidegain and Dimitri Rassam);
The War, a five-season series about the unending interconnected conflicts of the 20th century (with
Christopher McQuarrie);
The 43, a six-hour mini-series about WWII British ex-servicemen fighting fascism on their home soil (BBC/NBC); ''A Coloured Man's Reminiscences
, an eight-hour miniseries chronicling the story of James Madison’s slave, Paul Jennings (with Tyger Williams and Rodrigo Garcia, for ABC); Castner's Cutthroats
, a six-hour miniseries about the Battle of the Aleutians (Discovery Channel); Rocket Men
, a ten-hour miniseries about Wernher von Braun and the men who took us to the moon and beyond; Climb to Conquer
, a ten-hour miniseries about the 10th Mountain Division in World War II (with Wildwood); and Shot All to Hell'', a four-hour miniseries about the James-Younger Gang and the Northfield, Minnesota, raid (TNT). Jendresen also has authored several books, several dealing with the socio-anthropology of
Peru and the
Amazon Basin, including
Dance of the Four Winds and its sequel,
Island of the Sun (both based upon the journals of and co-written with Alberto Villoldo), and the children's book,
The First Story Ever Told (also with Villoldo).
Hanuman (with Joshua M. Greene, and Li Ming) is a re-telling for children of a portion of the
Ramayana. Jendresen co-wrote
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (originally
Dead Reckoning Part Two) with director
Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie and Jendresen have also been working on an as-yet untitled film with
Tom Cruise, which McQuarrie described in 2022 as being "gnarlier" than the
Mission: Impossible films and as "something we've talked about for a really long time. It's way outside of what you're used to seeing Tom do.". He is also a playwright (
The Killing of Michael Malloy,
Excuse My Dust,
Malice Aforethought). ==Personal life==