Andy Samberg

Birthday: 18 August 1978, Berkeley, California, USA

Height: 5' 10" (1.78 m)

 

Biography

A native of Berkeley, California, Samberg is one of three Los Angeles, California-based writer-performer-filmmakers--all childhood friends--dubbed the Lonely Island, whose short films were showcased on the popular untelevised television network show and Web site Channel 101.com. Some of their popular shorts included "The O.C." (2003) parody "The 'Bu" and their full-length pilot, "Awesometown." They met Jimmy Fallon while writing for MTV Video Music Awards 2004 (2004) (TV), who then suggested that they audition for "Saturday Night Live". Andy was then cast as a featured performer, and Samberg's Lonely Island cohorts Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer were hired as writers for the show. Near the end of his first season of "SNL," Andy was cast as the lead role in the film Hot Rod (2007), the first major motion picture by the Lonely Island team, with the production support of Lorne Michaels 

Samberg was born in Berkeley, California. His mother, Marjorie "Margi" (née Marrow), is an elementary school teacher, and his father, Joe is a photographer.^[4] He has two sisters, Johanna and Darrow.^[5] His family is Jewish, and his maternal grandfather, industrial psychologist and philanthropist Alfred J. Marrow, served as the executive chair of the American Jewish Congress. He has also described himself as "not particularly religious."^[6][7][8] Samberg is a third cousin of U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin (their maternal grandfathers were first cousins).^[9]

Samberg discovered Saturday Night Live as a child, while sneaking past his parents to watch professional wrestling on television.^[10] He became obsessed with the show, and his devotion to comedy was frustrating to teachers who felt he was unfocused on his schoolwork.^[10] Samberg graduated from Berkeley High School in 1996, where he became interested in creative writing, and has stated: "[Writing classes] were the ones that I put all my effort into...that's what I cared about and that's what I ended up doing."^[11] He attended college at University of California, Santa Cruz, for two years before transferring to New York University for its acclaimed film school. He majored in experimental film, where he starred as "Monkey" in the music video for James Kochalka's song "Monkey vs. Robot".^[12] He graduated from NYU in 2000.^[13] After five years of dating, Samberg announced his engagement to musician Joanna Newsom in February 2013.^[14]

Career

Before joining the late night comedy show SNL, Andy Samberg was a YouTube and Internet star. He first began making comedy videos with his two friends Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. When YouTube was created in 2005, the streaming of their videos became much more widespread over the Internet. "With respect to some of these YouTube stars, Hollywood talent agencies have recognized the revenue potential of these entertainers and are signing them into development deals."^[15] He became a featured player on the show in part because of the work he'd done on his own sketch comedy website TheLonelyIsland.com. that helped them land an agent and eventually get hired at SNL.^[16] Prior to joining its cast, Samberg was (and remains) a member of the comedy troupe The Lonely Island (along with Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer). The trio began writing for Saturday Night Live in 2005 and released their debut album, Incredibad, in 2009. Samberg has appeared in numerous theatrical films, commercials, music videos and has hosted special events, including the 2009 MTV Movie Awards. In 2012, Samberg delivered the Class Day speech at Harvard University.^[17] In September 2012, he plays Dale Ashbrick in a BBC Three comedy show, Cuckoo.^[18] He starred with Adam Sandler twice in That's My Boy and Hotel Transylvania.

Saturday Night Live

Samberg in 2007

After Samberg joined SNL as a featured player, in September 2005 along with his two friends as the show's writing staff while his live sketch roles were limited in his first year, he appeared in many prerecorded sketches, including commercial parodies and various other filmed segments. For the December 17, 2005 show, he and Chris Parnell starred in the Digital Short "Lazy Sunday", a nerdcore hip hop song performed by two Manhattanites on a quest to see the film The Chronicles of Narnia. The short quickly became an Internet phenomenon and garnered Samberg significant media and public attention, as did "Dick in a Box," a duet with Justin Timberlake that won a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.^[3] His comedy troupe's collaboration with T-Pain, the "I'm on a Boat" music video, had over 56 million views on YouTube after debuting on February 7, 2009, and was nominated for a Grammy Award. Another digital short, "Motherlover" (also featuring Timberlake), was released on May 10, 2009 (to commemorate Mother's Day), and is a sequel of "Dick in a Box."^[19] Outside of his prerecorded segments, he also participated in recurring live segments, such as his Blizzard Man sketch.^[20] On June 1, 2012, Samberg's spokesperson announced that he had left the show. ^[21][22]

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2007	Hot Rod	Rod Kimble	Film debut
2008	Space Chimps	Ham III	Voice only
2009	I Love You, Man	Robbie Klaven
	Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs	Brent McHale	Voice only
2011	What's Your Number?	Gerry Perry
	Friends with Benefits	Quincy
2012	That's My Boy	Todd Peterson/Han Solo Berger
	The Watch	Casual Wanker #2
	Hotel Transylvania	Jonathan	Voice only
	Celeste and Jesse Forever	Jesse Abrams
2013	The To Do List	Van
	Grown Ups 2	Car Wash guy
	Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2	Brent McHale	Voice only

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2004	Premium Blend	Himself	TV debut
2005–2012	Saturday Night Live	Various Roles	Sketcher
2007	Scarred	Himself
2009	2009 MTV Movie Awards	Host
	Boomerang	Lou the Director Boy	Presenter
	Bollywood Hero	Himself
	Yo Gabba Gabba!	Himself	Guest star
	American Dad	Ricky the Raptor/Antichrist	Voice only, Guest star
2010–2011	Take Two with Phineas and Ferb	Himself	Guest star
2010	Freaknik: The Musical	Chad	Voice only
	The Sarah Silverman Program	Troy
	Parks and Recreation	Carl Lorthner	Guest star
	18th ESPY Awards	Paul the Octopus
2011	Adventure Time	Party Pat	Voice only, Guest star
	Shark Week	Himself	Host
2012	SpongeBob SquarePants	Colonel Carper	Voice only, Guest star
2012–present	Cuckoo	Dale Ashbrick

 

Awards and nominations

Year	Award Show	Category	Result
2011	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Comedian	Nominated
2012	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Comedian	Nominated