Chris D'Elia

Christopher William D'Elia is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and podcast host. He is known for playing Alex Miller on the NBC sitcom Whitney, Danny Burton on the NBC sitcom Undateable, and Kenny on the ABC television series The Good Doctor. In 2019 he appeared as Henderson in the Netflix thriller series You.

D'Elia is the son of TV producer and director Bill D'Elia, and interior decorator Ellie D'Elia (née Dombroski). He has a younger brother, filmmaker/actor Matt D'Elia. His father is second generation Italian-American. and his mother is ofPolish and Italian descent.

He was born and raised in Montclair, New Jersey, until age twelve, when his family relocated to Los Angeles, California. He graduated from La Cañada High School in 1998.

D'Elia started acting in high school, and had some guest starring parts on Chicago Hope.

He attended New York University and studied acting but dropped out after a year, because he did not like college. He then appeared in a movie that went straight to DVD. During his downtime as an actor he started writing scripts. When he was 25 he decided to do stand-up comedy, which he had always wanted to do.

D'Elia has been doing stand-up comedy since 2006. He considers himself to be a stand-up comedian who acts. He has been featured on Comedy Central's Live at Gotham, Comedy Central Presents, and Showtime's Live Nude Comedy. He was introduced to a broader audience as a regular on the series Glory Daze, which ran for one season on TBS, playing "the Oracle", William Stankowski. He was originally only cast for the pilot, but was made a series regular.

He co-starred in the NBC comedy series Whitney, opposite comedian Whitney Cummings, for two seasons.

D'Elia was one of three hosts of the Ten Minute Podcast (from 2012 to 2015), along with Bryan Callen and Will Sasso. Since February 2017, he has hosted the weekly podcast Congratulations with Chris D'Elia, which has charted in the top 20 comedy podcasts in multiple countries. Listeners of the podcast are often referred to as 'Babies'. Other podcasts have been heavily influenced by his style, including The Fighter and the Kid, hosted by friend Bryan Callen and former MMA fighter turned E! host Brendan Schaub.

D'Elia also gained over 2 million followers on Vine.

In January 2013, D'Elia released his debut parody rap album, as MC "Chank Smith", called Such Is Life (produced by Mr. Green).

On December 6, 2013, D'Elia's first one-hour stand-up special, White Male Black Comic, aired on Comedy Central. He has had three subsequent comedy specials: Incorrigible (2015), Man On Fire (2017) and No Pain (2020), all of which aired on Netflix. All four were directed by his father.

D'Elia had the lead role in the 2014-2016 NBC sitcom Undateable as Danny Burton, a ladies' man whose friends are all in one way or another "undateable". The show was executive produced by Bill Lawrence, and is a multi-camera sitcom with a live audience. The show often incorporated improvisation. The cast includes stand-up comics who were good friends before the show. In 2015, Bill Lawrence and the comics from the cast (D'Elia, Brent Morin, Ron Funches and Rick Glassman) went on a series of stand-up tour dates to promote the show.

In 2016, D'Elia headlined the Leafly 420 Comedy Tour show in Chicago with special guest Ron Funches.

In March 2019, it was announced that D'Elia had been cast in the recurring role of Henderson on the second season of the Netflix thriller series You.

On an April 2018 episode of his Congratulations podcast, D'Elia imitated rapper Eminem and made fun of Eminem's middle-aged fans, while conceding that Eminem was "one of the best rappers of all time". Positive reaction to that imitation led D'Elia to imitate Eminem's rapping again in videos he posted online in September 2018 (in his car) and January 2019 (in his garage). In February 2019, Eminem posted the garage video on his Twitter account, writing, "This is INCREDIBLE!!! 4 a second I actually thought it WAS me!!" The May 2019 single "Homicide" by Logic featuring Eminem then included an audio clip from the car video at the end of the song. D'Elia said that it was a "huge honor" to be included in the song, and that he did not ask for any royalties. D'Elia then had a substantial role in the music video for the song, released in June 2019, which had each rapper's part performed/lip-synced by someone else: Logic's part was performed by actor Chauncey Leopardi (in reference to a humorous internet meme that claimed that the two were the same person), Eminem's part was performed by D'Elia, and D'Elia's part was performed by Eminem, mimicking the appearance of D'Elia in the car video.

In 2006, D'Elia married actress Emily Montague. They divorced in 2010.

Despite the fact that his characters in Whitney (Alex Miller) and Undateable (Danny Burton) are both portrayed as frequent drinkers, D'Elia has never consumed illicit drugs or alcohol.

D'Elia announced in February 2020 on his podcast Congratulations that his first child was born.

D'Elia lives in the Beachwood Canyon area of Los Angeles.

D'Elia has cited Jim Carrey, Bryan Callen, Eddie Murphy, and Mitzi Shore as major influences on his comedic career.

Comedy albums