Quick Facts
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Biography
Kyle James Kozub Mooney (born September 4, 1984) is an American actor, comedian, and writer, who has been a cast member of Saturday Night Live since 2013. His man-on-the-street interviews have been featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Sports Show with Norm Macdonald.
Mooney has been a regular writer and performer at the acclaimed Upright Citizens Brigade since 2007. He also co-starred as Rory on the HBO comedy series Hello Ladies. Mooney also starred in the film Brigsby Bear, which he co-wrote.
Early life
Mooney was born the youngest in a family of three boys in San Diego, California, to parents Linda (née Kozub) and Brian Mooney. Linda is a former The San Diego Union-Tribune reporter, and Brian is an environmental consultant and planner. Mooney has two older brothers, Sean and Ryan Mooney; making him the youngest of the three boys. Mooney is left-handed and nearsighted.
Mooney's Marshall Middle School class chose him as the most likely to become a T.V. star. He graduated from Scripps Ranch High School in 2003, where he won Best Actor as Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest and was hailed as class clown. Mooney studied film at the University of Southern California. There, he performed improv and sketch comedy with collegiate group Commedus Interruptus. After a six-week audition process in 2003, the three new members added to Commedus were Kyle Mooney, Beck Bennett, and Nick Rutherford.
Mooney is a self-described collector and owns a VHS collection that he started working on as a child. He currently has a giant bookshelf as well as two smaller bookshelves that are packed with VHS tapes. Through connections made while working on SNL, Mooney has been able to get his VHS tapes autographed by the actors who have starred in them. For example, Mooney owns a Beetlejuice VHS that was signed by both Michael Keaton and Alec Baldwin.
Career
Good Neighbor
In 2007, Mooney, Bennett, and Rutherford came together to form the sketch comedy group Good Neighbor, along with Mooney's friend, director and editor Dave McCary. Bennett and Dave McCary joined Mooney on SNL in 2013 (as a performer and director, respectively), and Rutherford was hired as a writer the following year. In 2014, Good Neighbor was featured on NewMediaRockstars' Top 100 Channels, ranked at #98.
Saturday Night Live
On September 28, 2013, Kyle Mooney made his debut on Saturday Night Live as a featured player. At the start of the forty-first season, Mooney was upgraded to repertory status.
Mooney has brought some of his YouTube characters to SNL, including his person-on-the-street interviews, the "4/20 weed-smoking guy", Chris Fitzpatrick, Todd from Inside SoCal, and Bruce Chandling.
He auditioned to join SNL in the summer of 2012, but he was rejected, and auditioned the next season and got on.
His celebrity impressions on Saturday Night Live include Jim Acosta, Woody Allen, Criss Angel, Fred Astaire, David Axelrod, Jeff Bezos, Neil Cavuto, Lincoln Chafee, Bradley Cooper, Tom Cotton, Michael Jackson, Bruce Jessen, Steve Jobs, John Kennedy, Chris Kirkpatrick, Joey Lawrence, Macklemore, Howie Mandel, Chuck Norris, Rand Paul, Pope Francis, Axl Rose, Skrillex, Stephen Stills, and Steven Tyler.
YouTube
Mooney started his personal YouTube channel (simply called "kyle") in September 2005, where he posted short comedy sketches. The channel was active from January 2011 to August 2013. He was also a member of the channel GoodNeighborStuff, along with Beck Bennett, Nick Rutherford and Dave McCary. The channel was active from May 2007 to May 2011.