Zachary Knight "Zach" Galifianakis ( /ˌɡælɨfəˈnækɨs/ GAL-i-fə-NAK-iss; born October 1, 1969) is an American stand-up comedian and actor known for his numerous film and television appearances including his own Comedy Central Presents special. While initially more of an "underground" comedian, he garnered mainstream attention for his role as Alan Garner in the comedy film The Hangover and its sequel The Hangover Part II.
Zach Galifianakis was born in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. His mother, Mary Frances (née Cashion), ran a community center for the arts, and his father, Harry Galifianakis, was a heating oil vendor. Galifianakis' paternal grandparents emigrated from Crete, Greece, and Galifianakis was baptized in his father's Greek Orthodox faith. His mother is of Scots-Irish descent. He has two siblings, a younger sister, Merritt, and an older brother, Greg. His uncle, Nick Galifianakis, was a congressman from North Carolina between 1967 and 1973. He attended Wilkes Central High School, and subsequently attended but did not graduate from North Carolina State University, where he was a communications major.
Conan Christopher O'Brien (born April 18, 1963) is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS.
O'Brien was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, and raised in an Irish Catholic family. He served as president of the Harvard Lampoon while attending Harvard University, and was a writer for the sketch comedy series Not Necessarily the News. After writing for several comedy shows in Los Angeles, he joined the writing staff of Saturday Night Live, and later of The Simpsons. He hosted Late Night with Conan O'Brien from 1993 to 2009, followed by seven months hosting The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, the only person to serve as the permanent host for both NBC programs.
O'Brien was born in Brookline, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston) to Thomas O'Brien, a physician, epidemiologist, and professor of medicine at Harvard, and Ruth O'Brien (née Reardon), an attorney and partner at the Boston firm Ropes & Gray. He is the third of six children. O'Brien's family is Irish Catholic and descends from pre-Civil War era immigrants. In a Late Night episode, O'Brien paid a visit to County Kerry, Ireland, where his ancestors originated.
Craig Ferguson (born 17 May 1962) is a Scottish-American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, and producer. He is the host of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, an Emmy Award-nominated, Peabody Award-winning late-night talk show that airs on CBS. In addition to hosting that program and performing stand-up comedy, Ferguson has written two books: Between the Bridge and the River, a novel, and American on Purpose, a memoir. He became a citizen of the United States in 2008.
Before his career as a late-night television host, Ferguson was best known in the United States for his role as the office boss, Nigel Wick, on The Drew Carey Show from 1996 to 2003. He also wrote and starred in three films, directing one of them.
Ferguson was born in the Stobhill Hospital in the Springburn district of Glasgow, Scotland to Robert and Janet Ferguson, and raised in nearby Cumbernauld, growing up "chubby and bullied". When he was six months old, he and his family moved from their Springburn apartment to a council house in Cumbernauld. They lived there as Glasgow was re-housing many people following damage to the city from World War II. Ferguson attended Muirfield Primary School and Cumbernauld High School. At age sixteen, Ferguson dropped out of Cumbernauld High School and began an apprenticeship to be an electronics technician at a local factory of American company Burroughs Corporation.
James Thomas "Jimmy" Fallon, Jr. (born September 19, 1974) is an American actor, comedian, singer, musician and television host. He currently hosts Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a late-night talk show that airs Monday through Friday on NBC. Prior to that he appeared in several films, and was best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1998–2004.
James Thomas Fallon, Jr., was born in Brooklyn, New York. Jimmy is the son of Gloria and James Fallon, Sr., who is a Vietnam War veteran. His family later settled in Saugerties, New York, while his father worked at IBM in nearby Kingston, New York. He is of Irish descent. As a child, he and his older sister, Gloria, would reenact the “clean parts” of Saturday Night Live that his parents had taped for him. Fallon was such a fan of Saturday Night Live that he made a weekly event of watching it in his dormitory during college. In his teens, he impressed his parents with different impersonations, the first being of James Cagney. He was also musically inclined, and started playing guitar at age 13. He would go on to mix comedy and music in contests and shows.
Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey ( /ˈfeɪ/; born May 18, 1970) is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer, known for her work on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (SNL), the NBC comedy series 30 Rock, and films such as Mean Girls (2004) and Baby Mama (2008).
Fey first broke into comedy as a featured player in the Chicago-based improvisational comedy group The Second City. She then joined SNL as a writer, later becoming head writer and a performer, known for her position as co-anchor in the Weekend Update segment. In 2004 she adapted the screenplay Mean Girls in which she also co-starred. After leaving SNL in 2006, she created the television series 30 Rock, a situation comedy loosely based on her experiences at SNL. In the series, Fey portrays the head writer of a fictional sketch comedy series. In 2008, she starred in the comedy film Baby Mama, alongside former SNL co-star Amy Poehler. Fey next appeared in the 2010 comedy films Date Night and Megamind.
She has received seven Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, four Writers Guild of America Awards and has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her autobiographical book Bossypants, which topped the The New York Times Best Seller list for five weeks. She was singled out as the performer who had the greatest impact on culture and entertainment in 2008 by the Associated Press, which gave her its AP Entertainer of the Year award for her satirical portrayal of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in a guest appearance on SNL. In 2010, Fey was the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the youngest-ever winner of the award.