Fred Armisen is a comedian, writer, producer, musician, and voice of “David” on FOX’s Universal Basic Guys. He is the co-writer and co-star of IFC’s Emmy® nominated series Portlandia, which he created alongside Carrie Brownstein. He received an Emmy® nomination for “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series” in 2014, four nominations for “Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series” and three nominations for “Outstanding Variety Sketch Series.” In 2013 Armisen, along with the other writers, won a Writers Guild Award for “Outstanding Comedy/Variety Series,” and they were nominated again in 2014 and 2018. Portlandia received the prestigious Peabody Award for excellence in 2011. The critically acclaimed sketch-comedy series recently wrapped its eighth and final season on IFC.

 

Recently, Armisen played Uncle Fester in Netflix’s smash hit Wednesday, voiced Cranky Kong in Universal’s box office megahit The Super Mario Bros Movie and appeared as “Tico” in HBO’s Los Espookys, a Spanish-Language series which he wrote and executive produced, which aired it’s third and final season. The series is about a group of friends, living in a dreamy version of present-day Mexico City, who are obsessed with horror films and monster makeup.  He produces Hulu’s This Fool, starring Chris Estrada, which recently launched Season 2 and can currently be seen in season two of Netflix’s Unstable opposite Rob Lowe.

 

He was also seen on HBO’s Our Flag Means Death; Judd Apatow’s The Bubble; Clerks III; Spin Me Round; voices Elliot Birch in Netflix‘s wildly popular animated cartoon, Big Mouth; voiced the character Deborahbot 5000 in the animated The Mitchells Vs The Machines; voices Lem Bennings on the Audible podcast series Lem Can Help.

 

Additionally, Armisen worked with IFC to create the critically acclaimed comedy, Documentary Now! The show is a curated series of half-hour documentaries and biopics, each about a completely fictitious subject. Armisen has received two Emmy® nominations for “Outstanding Variety Sketch Series" and a WGA nomination for “Comedy/Variety – Sketch Series.” Armisen and Bill Hader play the primary roles as well as write and executive produce. In 2015, Hader and Armisen released a 12” vinyl EP called Catalina Breeze by their fictitious '70s soft-rock band they portray on the show, The Blue Jean Committee, via record label Drag City. The fourth season of the series premiered on IFC in the fall of 2022.

 

Recently, Armisen released his original stand-up comedy special Fred Armisen: Stand Up for Drummers on Netflix. In the special, Armisen shares his thoughts on musical genres, drummer quirks, regional accents and more for an audience of fellow drummers. The special was released in February 2018 and received a GRAMMY nomination for “Best Comedy Album” in 2019. Armisen was also recently cast in the Netflix movie, Sorta Like a Rock Star opposite Carol Burnett and Rhenzy Feliz.

 

Armisen also served as executive producer and star of Amazon’s series, Forever, along with fellow SNL alum Maya Rudolph. The comedy starred the duo who play a long-term married couple residing in Southern California. The series was released on September 15, 2018.

 

In February 2014, Armisen was named band leader of the 8G Band on Late Night with Seth Meyers. The band, curated by Armisen, includes members of indie rock bands Les Savy Fav and Girls against Boys. Armisen plays with the band when he is not in production on one of his other projects.  He was recently nominated for an Emmy for “Outstanding Music Direction” for his work on the show.   

 

In 2015 Armisen teamed up with Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video, NBCUniversal Telemundo, and fellow SNL alum Horatio Sanz to create a digital comedy channel aimed at the English-speaking Hispanic audience called Mas Mejor.

 

Armisen’s career began as a musician in the Chicago-based post-punk band Trenchmouth as well as the Blue Man Group. His transition to comedy came with the 1998 underground short film Fred Armisen's Guide to Music and South by Southwest which followed him through the Austin, Texas "South by Southwest" music festival posing as a journalist. In 2006, he interviewed Cat Power for the influential music website Pitchfork.com, and later released a comedic instructional DVD, Complicated Drumming Technique, in 2007.

 

An eleven-season veteran of Saturday Night Live, Armisen has engaged audiences with memorable impressions and characters including Stuart in The Californians alongside Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig and the unforgettable songwriting team of Garth and Kat (with Kristen Wiig), to name a few. He closed out his last season in the guise of British punk rocker Ian Rubbish with a star-studded performance of the original song “It’s a Lovely Day.” In May of 2016 he hosted SNL’s season 41 finale. Armisen won the WGA for “Best Comedy / Variety Sketch Series” in 2017 and received a WGA nomination for his work on the SNL: 40th Anniversary Special in 2016.

 

He has appeared in countless feature films including Battle Of The Sexes, The Little Hours, Band Aid, Michael Bolton’s Big, Sexy Valentine’s Day Special, Ordinary World, Zoolander 2, 7 Days In Hell, Easy A, The Rocker, Confessions Of A Shopaholic, Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny, Baby Mama, The Ex, Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy and The Dictator as well as lending his voice to the features The Lego Ninjago Movie and The Smurfs.

 

On the small screen, he has made guest appearances on New Girl, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Animals, Modern Family, Difficult People, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, 30 Rock, Broad City, Parks and Recreation, I Love You America, Last Man on Earth and the cable comedy shows The Sarah Silverman Show, and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! He was also seen in the smash kids show Yo Gabba Gabba on Nickelodeon and did voice-over guest spots on Comrade Detective, Archer, Final Space and Chozen.

 

Armisen splits his time between New York and Los Angeles.