Matt Walsh Biography

Matthew Paul Walsh (born October 13, 1964) is an American actor, comedian, director, and writer best known as a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade improvisational sketch comedy troupe and for playing Mike McLintock on the HBO series Veep, a role for which he has received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He also previously starred in short-lived comedy programs such as Dog Bites Man on Comedy Central and Players on Spike TV. He also starred in the 2014 disaster movie Into the Storm.

Early life

Walsh was born in Chicago, the fourth of seven children of Dick and Audrey Walsh. He graduated from Hinsdale South High School in 1982. While in high school he played on the football team as a backup tight end. He attended Northern Illinois University, where he graduated with a degree in Psychology, also spending a year studying abroad in Austria at Salzburg College.

Career

After college, his interest shifted to performing when he started taking improvisational comedy classes in Chicago, where he would become a regular performer at the Annoyance Theater and ImprovOlympic, where he studied under legendary improv teacher Del Close. In 1991, he met comedian Matt Besser, with whom he began performing stand-up comedy. Along with Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, and Ian Roberts, he is a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade improv comedy troupe and played "Trotter" in the troupe's sketch comedy series, which ran for three seasons on Comedy Central. Before the show, the UCB comedy foursome had already been doing improv shows at their theatre in New York, which used to be a burlesque house before they remodeled it to become a theatre. To date, they have founded four successful Upright Citizens Brigade comedy theaters located in New York at UCB Chelsea and The East Village UCB, and Los Angeles with UCB Franklin and UCB Sunset.

Besides his sketch work with the Upright Citizens Brigade, Walsh is also known for his memorable supporting roles in popular comedy films in recent years including Cyrus, Old School, The Hangover, Role Models, and Semi-Pro. Walsh also wrote and starred in the cult indie-comedy Martin & Orloff, which had a limited theatrical run in 2002 and 2003. In addition, he was also a correspondent on The Daily Show from 2001 to 2002, made regular appearances in comedy sketches on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and MTV's Human Giant as well as starring in the Comedy Central mockumentary series Dog Bites Man in the summer of 2006. Walsh has the distinction of having appeared in several Todd Phillips comedy films, most often playing characters aptly named "Walsh".

In 2010, Walsh created the improvised comedy series Players for Spike TV. Walsh (creator, writer, director and executive producer of the show) stars in the series alongside his Upright Citizens Brigade partner Ian Roberts, as two brothers who run a sports bar together. The show aired for one season, concluding on August 14, 2010.

Walsh currently hosts the podcast Bear Down with comedian Scot Armstrong (screenwriter of Old School) where they discuss their favorite football team The Chicago Bears and do sports-themed comedy bits such as fake call-ins and in-character interviews. The podcast has also featured appearances by comedians such as Horatio Sanz, Ian Roberts, Joseph Nunez, and Matt Price.

In 2010, Walsh had recurring roles on the NBC comedy series Outsourced and on the HBO comedy series Hung. In 2012, he began co-starring as Mike McLintock in the HBO series Veep, for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2016. During that year, Walsh portrayed J. R. R. Tolkien in The Dead Authors Podcast.

Walsh's directed his first feature film High Road, an indie-comedy he co-wrote with Josh Weiner. The film was released on March 6, 2012. He is currently in post-production for his second directed film, A Better You, which he co-wrote with Brian Huskey, who stars in the film.

In the movie Into the Storm, Walsh stars as Pete Moore, who is the driver of the Tornado Intercept Vehicle nicknamed "Titus."

He will be appearing in the MyCareer mode in the upcoming basketball simulation game, NBA 2K17.

Personal life

Walsh lives in Toluca Lake, California, with his wife Morgan. They have three children, Jude, Emmett, and Celia, and three dogs named Roger, Sarah and Penny.

Walsh confirmed on the May 20th, 2016 episode of the Dan Patrick Show that along with the Bears he is also a fan of the Chicago White Sox.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998	Tomorrow Night
	Talent	Ted
1999	Fatty Drives the Bus	Man in Baseball Uniform
2000	Road Trip	Crime Scene Photographer
2002	Martin & Orloff	Dr. Eric Orloff
2003	Pushing Tom	Co-Worker
	Old School	Walsh
	The Test	Joe	Short film
	Death of a Dynasty	Frat Boy No. 1
	Elf	Eye Witness
	Brainwarp	Captain Maniac	Video
	Bad Santa	Herb
2004	The Sensual Lover of Bindalele	Budo	Short film
	Starsky & Hutch	Eddie
	Christmas with the Kranks	Neighbor #2
2006	School for Scoundrels	Walsh
2007	Wild Girls Gone	Sheriff Terry Moran
	Dante's Inferno	Mussolini / Fox Reporter / Airport Security Pursuer (voice)
2008	Lower Learning	Mr. Conroy
	Be Kind Rewind	Officer Julian
	Drillbit Taylor	Not for Pot Driver
	Semi-Pro	Father Pat
	Step Brothers	Drunk Corporate Guy
	Role Models	Davith of Glencracken
2009	Mystery Team	Jim
	I Love You, Man	Impatient Golfer
	The Hangover	Dr. Valsh
	The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard	Captain Ortiz
	May the Best Man Win	Fred Anderton
2010	Cyrus	Tim
	Due Date	TSA Agent
	Queens of Country	Cleveland Norvis
	Cherry	Prof. Van Auken
	Breast Picture	Jack
2011	Freak Dance	Adolph Hitler, Jr.
2012	High Road	Man	Also director, co-writer
	Ted	Thomas
	Free Samples	Mr. Hightower
	Queens of Country	Cleveland Norvis
	The Brass Teapot	Antique Dealer
2013	Movie 43	Amanda's Dad	Segment: "Middleschool Date"
	Coffee Town	Police officer
2014	Hits	Dave
	Into the Storm	Pete
	Sex Ed	Washout
	Jason Nash Is Married	Randy Plymouth
	A Better You	Patrick	Also writer and director
2015	Get Hard	Bathroom Stall Man
	Bad Night	Ari
2016	Other People	Steve
	The Darkness	Gary Carter
	The Do-Over	Shecky
	Ghostbusters	Rourke
	Wild Oats	Forbes
	Keeping up with the Joneses	Dan Craverston
	Office Christmas Party	Ezra
2017	Brigsby Bear	Greg Pope
	A Futile and Stupid Gesture	Matty Simmons	Post-production
	Under the Eiffel Tower	Stuart	Filming
2018	Life of the Party	Dan	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	Escape from It's a Wonderful Life	Clarence / Various (voice)
1996-2000	Saturday Night Live	Angry Dad / Construction Worker / Hidden Camera Victim	3 episodes
1996-2004	Late Night with Conan O'Brien	Various
1997	Apartment 2F	Iron Stomach	2 episodes
1998-2000	Upright Citizens Brigade	Trotter/Various Characters	30 episodes
2000	Strangers with Candy	Banker / Doctor Robots	Episode: "Yes You Can't"
2001	Late Friday	Old Man	Episode: "#1.6"
2001-2002	The Daily Show	Correspondent
2004	Cheap Seats without Ron Parker	Gordon Sumner	Episode: "#Stanford-Cal: The 1982 Big Game"
	Arrested Development	The D.A.	Episode: "Let 'Em Eat Cake"
	O'Grady	Kevin's Dad (voice)	Episode: "The Fly"
2004-2009	Reno 911!	Ranger Glen / Ian Meltzer	5 episodes
2006	Dog Bites Man	Kevin Beeken	9 episodes
2007-2008	Human Giant	Various characters	9 episodes
2008	Worst Week	Peacemon	Episode: "The Monitor"
	The Sarah Silverman Program	Tennis Player	Episode: "Patriot Tact"
	Little Britain USA	Senator's Press Rep / Businessman at Urinal	3 episodes
2009	The League	Mr. Freidman	Episode: "The Draft"
	Aqua Teen Hunger Force	Ray (voice)	Episode: "Fry Legs"
2010	Players	Bruce Fitzgerald	10 episodes
	Party Down	Larry Duckett	Episode: "Cole Landry's Draft Day Party"
	Nick Swardson's Pretend Time	Police Chief	Episode: "Relapse Into Refreshment"
	Community	Joshua the Groundskeeper	Episode: "Aerodynamics of Gender"
	Funny or Die Presents	Producer	Episode: "#1.5"
	Hung	Matt Saline	6 episodes
	Childrens Hospital	Cameraman / Dr. Trotter	2 episodes
2010-2011	Outsourced	Jerry Stern	8 episodes
2011	Jon Benjamin Has a Van	Dr. Nathan Kumerly / Rob Shutterman	2 episodes
2011-2013	NTSF:SD:SUV	President Grant / NASA Agent
2012	Animal Practice	Alan Waxman	Episode: "Pilot"
	Happy Endings	Duckie Blenkinship	Episode: "KickBall 2: The Kickening"
	MyMusic	Mr. Indie	Episode: "Back in Black!"
2012-present	Veep	Mike McLintock	48 episodes
2013	Parks and Recreation	Leonard Tchulm	Episode: "Emergency Response"
	The Aquabats! Super Show!	Santa Claus	Episode: "Christmas with the Aquabats!"
2013-2014	Drunk History	Joseph Pulitzer / KKK Member	2 episodes
2013-2016	Comedy Bang! Bang!	L. Jefe Maninchargo	11 episodes
2014	How I Met Your Mother	Captain Dearduff	Episode: "Sunrise"
	Bob's Burgers	Rick (voice)	Episode: "The Kids Rob a Train"
2014-2016	Brooklyn Nine-Nine	Detective Lohank	3 episodes
2015	Rick and Morty	Sleepy Gary (voice)	Episode: "Total Rickall"
	Playing House	Phil	Episode: "Employee of the Month"
	Hot in Cleveland	Arnie	Episode: "Bad Girlfriends"
2016	Animals.	Grey Horse (voice)	Episode: "Rats"
	Last Week Tonight with John Oliver	Jason Clark	Episode: "Doping"
2017	Teachers	Harvey	Episode: "Getting Drilled"
	Black-ish	President Schock	Episode: "Liberal Arts"