French screenwriter Nicolas Jean, who found international acclaim for his work on the French series HPI, has died at age 63, Deadline reports.

The SACD, a French writers guild, announced via its Instagram and Facebook pages that Jean had died suddenly on September 29, though they did not give a cause of death, according to Deadline.

As per Deadline: “Nicolas Jean entered the industry thirteen years ago and had a meteoric rise. Self-taught, with an atypical background that enriched his fictional stories, he quickly established himself as a talented and essential screenwriter on television,” wrote Florence Philipponnat (Deadly Tropics, Plus belle la vie), an SACD administrator and fellow screenwriter.

“He had a gift for freely inventing original concepts, freeing himself from imposed constraints. And he knew how to intelligently surround himself with creative writers to develop them with him, because he was passionate about sharing and generosity,” Philipponnat said via Deadline.

Before working on HPI, Jean wrote for the long-running French soap opera Tomorrow is Ours (Demain nous appartient), in addition to writing on thriller mini-series The Mantis (2017), cellblock drama Impatients (2018), and supernatural mystery Promethea (2022), according to Deadline.

Jean rose to prominence as the co-creator of the French series HPI, which garnered an international audience across more than 90 countries, including the U.S., where the series was picked up by Hulu, Deadline reports. A subsequent American version, led by Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods, Daredevil) and starring Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Abbott Elementary), was produced for ABC.

According to Deadline, the show stars Audrey Fleurot (Women at War, Safe) as a single mother of three, who, despite her “high intellectual potential,” works as a cleaning lady. But after she discovers a clue pertaining to an ongoing murder case, she is hired by the local police as a consultant, where she utilizes her emergent detective skills.

Although Jean is credited as the show’s co-creator, Philipponnat notes that he came up with the original concept after being inspired by his son. “He explained that the idea came to him from one of his sons who had been diagnosed with HPI,” she wrote via Deadline. “He adored his children and often spoke to us about them.”

Deadline reports that, even long after Jean had seen great success through HPI, Philipponnat recalled that his affection for Tomorrow is Ours, which had given him one of his first screenwriting jobs, led him to continue contributing to the show’s plotlines.

“He was a man of great loyalty as well as a workaholic, never short of ideas, a mind in perpetual turmoil, sparing no effort,” she wrote per Deadline.