Quick Facts
Biography
Steve Koren is an Emmy Award winning writer/producer and screenwriter. Most notably he’s written for "Saturday Night Live", "Seinfeld", and "Veep". He also wrote or co-wrote the movies "Bruce Almighty", "Click", "A Night at the Roxbury" and "Superstar".
In addition, he’s contributed to "Curb Your Enthusiasm". (Palestinian Chicken Episode).
Koren was born in Queens, New York, and attended Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Bayside, Queens.
Career
After college, he began his career as an NBC page. Among his duties as a page was working for Saturday Night Live. As a Rockefeller Center tour guide, Koren would hand jokes to David Letterman and Dennis Miller as they passed in the hall, which landed him a writing gig on SNL. He also occasionally acted for the series.
While at SNL, he wrote/co-wrote Weekend Update, Mary Katheryn Gallagher, The Roxbury Guys, Adam Sandler’s The Denise Show, The Joe Pesci Show, Jim Carrey’s Hot Tub Lifeguard, among many other sketches.
In addition, he helped write and performed on Adam Sandler’s Platinum debut album They’re All Gonna Laugh At You.
Later, he became a writer for Seinfeld, and wrote the episodes "The Abstinence," "The English Patient," "The Serenity Now," and "The Dealership," and he was one of the contributors to the teleplay for "The Frogger" and "The Puerto Rican Day".
In the episode "The Van Buren Boys," a character named Steve Koren is George Costanza's choice for the first Susan Biddle Ross Scholarship to be granted by the Susan Ross Foundation.
Koren has executive-produced several films such as Adam Sandler's Grown Ups (2010), Just Go with It (2011), Blended (2014), and Pixels (2015). Koren also wrote the movie Superstar starring Molly Shannon and Will Ferrell.
Filmography
Writing credits
- Saturday Night Live (TV) (1991–1998)
- Seinfeld (TV) (1996–1998)
- A Night at the Roxbury (1998) (co-written with Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan)
- Superstar (1999) (written as Steven Wayne Koren)
- Everything But the Girl (TV movie) (2001)
- Bruce Almighty (2003) (co-written with Mark O'Keefe and Steve Oedekerk)
- Click (2006) (co-written with Mark O'Keefe)
- Fishy (short film) (2006)
- Jack and Jill (2011) (co-written with Adam Sandler and Robert Smigel)
- A Thousand Words (2012)
- Veep (2016)
Acting credits
- Seinfeld:
- "The Millennium" (May 1, 1997) - as the character Steve Koren
"The Dealership" (January 8, 1998) - as the Cab Driver
"The Finale" (May 14, 1998) - as a Juror
- Fishy (short film) (2006) - as Dad
Awards and nominations
- Emmy Award Winner (2016) for Outstanding Comedy Series: Veep
- Emmy Award nominee (1992, 1993) for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Variety or Music Program; the nomination was shared with other writers for Saturday Night Live
- Emmy Award nominee (1998) for Outstanding Comedy Series; the nomination was shared with other writers for Seinfeld
