Fred Armisen
- Original name:
- Fereydun Robert Armisen
- Born:
- December 4, 1966, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, U.S. (age 58)
Fred Armisen (born December 4, 1966, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, U.S.) is an American comedian and musician, best known for his many recurring characters and impersonations as a cast member (2002–13) on Saturday Night Live (SNL) and for cocreating and costarring in the sketch comedy show Portlandia. Armisen’s comedic voice is marked by deft mimicry, wide-eyed earnestness, a gently confrontational style, and many drawn-out awkward pauses.
Early years and music career
Armisen comes from a multicultural, multilingual family. His Venezuelan mother and half-German, half-Korean father met at the University of Southern Mississippi, in Hattiesburg, where Armisen was born. The family moved to New York City when he was a baby and eventually settled in Valley Stream, Long Island. They relocated to Rio de Janeiro for two years when Armisen was in elementary school before returning to Valley Stream. Armisen, who speaks fluent Spanish, later made use of these formative experiences around the world in the many impressions and diverse characters that he performed in his comedy sketches.
Armisen began taking drum lessons after becoming enamored with the percussive inventiveness of samba and other music styles he saw in Brazil. As a teenager he was a fan of Keith Moon, the drummer of British rock group the Who, and became a devotee of punk and new-wave bands such as Devo, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash. In the late 1980s, after graduating high school, Armisen attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he took film classes and became acquainted with the work of video artists such as Bill Viola. However, he dropped out and moved to Chicago to play drums in the post-punk band Trenchmouth.
He spent most of the 1990s toiling on the independent music circuit with Trenchmouth, which ultimately released four full-length albums but never broke through to a wider audience. During this time he made ends meet by working in restaurants and also had a stint performing background music in a Chicago production of the Blue Man Group performance art show.
Transition into comedy
By the late 1990s Armisen had become frustrated with the music industry but still hungered to make the big time. As he later told radio host Howard Stern, “I always wanted to be famous, but I thought it was going to be through drumming.” He had a knack for making others laugh and impersonating others’ voices, and, at the urging of several friends, he began to pursue comedy more seriously. One result of this new path was a video short, “Fred Armisen’s Guide to Music and SXSW” (1998). In the 20-minute film, Armisen attends the South by Southwest arts festival and pranks various musicians and other attendees by asking bizarre questions and speaking in assorted accents. The tape became a popular bootlegged item, and through it Armisen attracted the attention of HBO, which commissioned him to star in and produce comedy shorts. Around this time he moved to Los Angeles and began performing as a stand-up comic.
TV fame: Saturday Night Live
In 2002, after Armisen was spotted by an SNL producer, he auditioned for Lorne Michaels, the creator of the long-running sketch comedy show, and was hired as a cast member. In his 11 seasons on the show, Armisen became a popular, reliable presence and performed many colorful characters, including Billy Smith, a Native American comedian; Stuart, an air-headed Californian; and Fericito, a Venezuelan nightclub comedian who plays the timbales (a type of drum common in Latin music). He also frequently impersonated celebrities, including the musician Prince, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and New York Gov. David Paterson. In 2007 Armisen started doing impressions of then presidential candidate Barack Obama for SNL, and he continued to portray Obama as president until 2012.
Portlandia and other work
In 2011 Armisen joined Sleater-Kinney guitarist and singer Carrie Brownstein and producer Jonathan Krisel to create the IFC sketch comedy show Portlandia, which was filmed in Portland, Oregon, and satirizes the city’s politically liberal, hipster lifestyle. Armisen had met Brownstein in 2003, and over the years they had made several video shorts, some of which feature characters later included on Portlandia. The two appear on the show in the guise of various people and have several recurring pairs of characters, most notably the feminist bookstore owners Candace and Toni. The series ran for eight seasons and was a critical favorite, earning numerous Emmy Award nominations for best writing and best variety sketch series.
From 2014 to 2024 Armisen served as the bandleader on fellow former SNL cast member Seth Meyers’s talk show Late Night with Seth Meyers. He also collaborated with Meyers and another former SNL cast member, Bill Hader, on the mockumentary series Documentary Now! (2015– ). Each episode of the latter show parodies the style and work of a famous documentary filmmaker; subjects have included the Maysles brothers, Errol Morris, and Robert Flaherty. Armisen cocreated and costarred in Los Espookys (2018–22), a Spanish-language HBO horror comedy set in an unnamed Latin American country.
Armisen has appeared in several movies, including Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), The Ex (2006), Easy A (2010), The Dictator (2012), and The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017). In 2018 he released the Netflix comedy special Fred Armisen: Standup for Drummers.
Personal life
Armisen was married to musician Sally Timms from 1998 to 2004 and actress Elisabeth Moss from 2009 to 2010. In 2022 he married fellow comedian Riki Lindhome.