Fred Armisen
Armisen at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	(1966-12-04) December 4, 1966 (age 45) Hattiesburg, Mississippi, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, music, television, film
Nationality	American
Years active	1987–present
Genres	Character comedy, sketch comedy
Spouse	Sally Timms (1998–2004) Elisabeth Moss (2009–2011)
Notable works and roles	Saturday Night Live Portlandia
Website	fredarmisen.com

Fred Armisen (born December 4, 1966) is a U.S. actor, comedian and musician best known for his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and portraying off-color foreign characters in various comedy films such as EuroTrip, Anchorman and Cop Out. With Carrie Brownstein, he is the cocreator and costar of the IFC sketch series Portlandia.

Early life[link]

Armisen was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and moved to Manhattan, New York City as a baby.^[1] He was raised in Valley Stream, New York, on Long Island. His mother, Hildegardt, a school-teacher, is Venezuelan, and his father, who worked for I.B.M., is of German and Japanese descent.^[2][3][4] He attended the School of Visual Arts (NYC)^[5] before dropping out to begin a career as a rock drummer.^[1] He has mentioned watching the bands The Clash and Devo perform on television, and wanting to be a performer since he was a child.^[6]

Career[link]

Music[link]

In 1984, Armisen played drums in a local band along with his high school friends in Valley Stream, New York, but the group ended soon after. Armisen began his career in 1988 when he moved from New York to Chicago to play drums for the punk rock band Trenchmouth.^[7] In the 1990s, he played background drums with the Blue Man Group in Chicago.

He plays drums on three tracks on Les Savy Fav's 2007 album Let's Stay Friends.^[8]

He also played on the Wandering Lucy album "Leap Year"

Television and film[link]

While playing with the band Trenchmouth, Armisen's interests switched to acting. In a January 2006 interview, he said, "I wanted to be on TV somehow. For some reason, I always thought it would be an indirect route; I didn't know that it would be comedy and Saturday Night Live. I just wanted to do something with performing that would lead me there."^[9]

Armisen's subsequent television work, such as some "memorable Andy Kaufman-esque appearances"^[10] on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, as well as work for Crank Yankers and Adult Swim, led in 2002 to a role as a featured player in the cast of Saturday Night Live.^[10] In the 2004 season, he was promoted to a repertory cast member.

Armisen has landed several minor and supporting roles in comedy films such as Eurotrip, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Deck the Halls, The Ex, The Promotion, The Rocker and Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Armisen stars in the IFC sketch series Portlandia alongside Carrie Brownstein (formerly of Sleater-Kinney); the first season debuted on January 21, 2011.^[11]

In the Cartoon Network series The Looney Tunes Show, Armisen voices Speedy Gonzales.^[12][13]

Saturday Night Live[link]

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The following is a partial list of notable roles Armisen has played in Saturday Night Live sketches. Armisen is currently the second-longest tenured cast member (second only to Seth Meyers), having been a member since Season 28.

Recurring characters[link]

Armisen and Elisabeth Moss at the 15th Screen Actors Guild Awards.

• Billy Smith – a Native American stand-up comedian who tells Native-American-themed jokes that no one gets.
• Fericito – a Venezuelan nightclub comedian who performs songs on Weekend Update with his brother Patrick (played by Will Forte)
• Leonard – the strange European host of the foreign music show Club Traxx.
• Mackey – a senile drummer who often does rimshots at inappropriate moments and appears in the "Rialto Grande" sketches.
• Nooni Schoener – a quirky, foreign art dealer who appears with his wife Nuni Schoener (played by Maya Rudolph) in the "The Schoeners" sketches)
• Frondi – a mentally challenged character who criticizes Ben Affleck's movie Gigli to Ben himself.
• Manuel Ortiz – host of 'The Manuel Ortiz' show on Television Dominicana where he "helps with whatever it is" his audience members are going through.
• Nicholas Fehn – a political commentator whose mind races and wanders so much that he is incapable of finishing a sentence without starting a new one.
• Roger A. Trevanti – greedy studio head and AMPTP member who rails against the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. Was a one-time character on SNL (his only appearance was on the last episode of season 33 before the show went on hiatus for the WGA strike hosted by NBC news anchor Brian Williams), but has appeared in several Internet videos around the time of the WGA strike.
• Roger Brush – a producer of multiple "Dr. Phil"-type talk shows (focused on teen issues, marital issues, sexual issues, and pregnancy issues respectively), who stars when the actual hosts are sick, repeatedly telling the people relating their problems to speak up, and, after not relating to their problems at all, offers them either useless advice based on his experience or no help at all.
• Garth – part of Garth & Kat (with Kristen Wiig), a musical duo who come to Weekend Update unprepared and make up songs on the spot.
• Giuseppe – the saxophone player for What Up With That?
• One of the "Dictator's Two Best Friends from Growing Up" (with Vanessa Bayer) who come to Weekend Update to secretly trash-talk the various dictators (such as Muammar al-Gaddafi and Kim Jong-un) with whom they grew up.

Celebrity impressions[link]

Armisen has done impressions of political figures such as Barack Obama, Hugo Chávez, Vicente Fox, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Barney Frank, George H. W. Bush, Ben Bernanke, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Mike Gravel, Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak and Michael Bloomberg. He has also impersonated celebrities such as Martin Scorsese, Desi Arnaz, Corbin Bleu, Sam Waterston, Joy Behar, Tony Danza, George Carlin, Dov Charney, Howie Mandel, Alan Osmond, Ben Gibbard, Liberace, David Gregory, Larry King, Penny Marshall, Kevin McHale (actor) (as Artie Abrams from Glee), David Lee Roth, Gene Simmons, Lawrence Welk, Paul Lynde, George Lopez, Randy Newman, Thom Yorke, John Oates, and Ice-T.

His list of impressions has also included:

• Barack Obama — recurring in Season 33 and Season 34 episodes as the Democratic presidential candidate (Season 33), the Democratic nominee, President-Elect, and President (Season 34), beginning on February 23, 2008.
• Prince — parody of the musician as the host of a talk show called The Prince Show, with Beyoncé Knowles (played by Maya Rudolph) as his co-host. Armisen, a fan of Prince since childhood, created the sketch as a way of improving his chances of meeting the musician.^[9]
• Steve Jobs — Apple CEO who appears on Weekend Update to show off strange new technology. Armisen has stated that Steve Jobs is the celebrity he most enjoys portraying.^[14]
• David Paterson – Governor of New York

Other work[link]

In 1998 he posed as a music journalist for the short film Fred Armisen’s Guide to Music and South by Southwest. It was filmed by then-girlfriend Sally Timms and featured Armisen's "pranking musicians and industry types" during the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas.^[15] A year later, Armisen starred with alternative rock legend Steve Albini in Chevelle's Point #1 EPK.

Armisen performing at Webster Hall in 2001

Armisen is part of ThunderAnt, a comedy duo with former Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein. The duo specializes in creating comedic short skits oftentimes about independent vocations such as one man shows, feminist bookstores, and bicycle rights activists.

Armisen has directed music videos for bands like The Helio Sequence. Armisen also had a role in the Wilco documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which featured footage from his stint opening for front man Jeff Tweedy's 2001 solo tour. He also appeared in video segments on Blue Man Group's How to be a Megastar Tour 2.0. Armisen occasionally writes for Pitchfork Media and interviewed Cat Power for that company.^[16] Fred appeared as Jens Hannemann on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on October 19, 2007, promoting a 28-minute DVD called Fred Armisen presents Jens Hannemann: "COMPLICATED DRUMMING TECHNIQUE".^[17] In 2010, Armisen briefly joined Joanna Newsom's tour for her album Have One On Me as his character Jens Hannemann.^[18] On SNL, Armisen often plays musical instruments in sketches, has two recurring characters who are musicians (Mackey the drummer from the Rialto Grande and Ferecito from Showbiz Grande Explosion), or impersonates famous figures in the music world such as Liberace, Phil Spector, Lou Reed, and Prince.

Armisen appeared in the official music video for Man Man's song "Rabbit Habits", playing a man who charms his blind date (Charlyne Yi) but runs away after she turns into a werewolf.^[19]

Along with Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis, Armisen voiced radio characters in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.

Armisen performed as a singer/drummer/comedic actor in the Blue Man Group's "How to be a Megastar Live!". He played the part as a salesman on TV who advertises for the Megastar Rock Manual. He also drummed in the performance and was a backup singer.

Personal life[link]

Armisen was married to English singer and songwriter Sally Timms from 1998 to 2004.^[20]

Armisen became engaged to actress Elisabeth Moss in January 2009.^[21] The two had met in October 2008 when Moss' fellow Mad Men star Jon Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live, and Moss joined Hamm in onstage sketches.^[22] The couple married on October 25, 2009 in Long Island City, New York.^[23] On August 13, 2010, the trade press reported that Moss and Armisen had separated earlier that year.^[24][25] Moss filed for divorce from Armisen on September 20, 2010; the court papers specified June 26, 2010 as the date of separation.^[26] The divorce was finalized on May 13, 2011.^[27]

In August 2010, media outlets reported Armisen was dating fellow Saturday Night Live cast member Abby Elliott.^[28] According to the Us Weekly website, Armisen and Elliott ended their relationship in September 2011.^[29]

Armisen stated on Real Time with Bill Maher that he is an atheist.^[30]

Discography[link]

Television credits[link]

Filmography[link]

References[link]