John Mulaney

John Edmund Mulaney (born August 26, 1982) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Mulaney first rose to prominence for his work as a writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2008 to 2013, where he contributed to numerous sketches and characters, including Stefon, a recurring character whom he and Bill Hader co-created. Since his departure from SNL, Mulaney has hosted the program six times, and became a member of the SNL Five Timers Club in 2022.

Mulaney's stand-up specials include The Top Part (2009), New in Town (2012), The Comeback Kid (2015), Kid Gorgeous (2018), and Baby J (2023). He won three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for Kid Gorgeous, Baby J, and SNL 50. Mulaney released a children's musical comedy special on Netflix, John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch (2019).

He was the creator and star of the semi-autobiographical Fox sitcom Mulaney, which aired for one season (2014–2015). Mulaney also performed as George St. Geegland in a comedic duo with Nick Kroll, appearing on television and on Broadway in the show Oh, Hello on Broadway (2016–2017). Mulaney serves as a co-executive producer, writer, and occasional actor in the IFC mockumentary series Documentary Now! (2015–2022). He hosted, created, and executive produced the Netflix talk show Everybody's in LA (2024) and its spinoff Everybody's Live with John Mulaney (2025).

Mulaney has taken guest roles in the Apple TV+ period series Dickinson (2019), the FX dramedy series The Bear (2023–), and the Peacock crime series Poker Face (2025). He also voiced Andrew Glouberman in the Netflix animated show Big Mouth (2017–2025), Peter Porker / Spider-Ham in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Chip in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), and Big Jack Horner in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022).

Early life and education

Mulaney was born on August 26, 1982, in Chicago, Illinois. Both of his parents are lawyers. His mother, Ellen Mulaney (née Stanton), is a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, and his father, Charles "Chip" Mulaney Jr., is a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. His parents are both of Irish Catholic heritage. Mulaney's maternal great-grandparents were George J. Bates, a Republican mayor of Salem, Massachusetts, who also served as a congressman from that state, and Nora Jennings, who moved to the U.S. from Ballyhaunis, County Mayo, Ireland. His maternal great-uncle is William H. Bates, who also served as a U.S. congressman. Coincidentally, Mulaney's maternal grandmother, Carolyn Stanton, and Hilary Meyers, mother of Mulaney's future Saturday Night Live coworker Seth Meyers, performed together in a hospital benefit show in Marblehead, Massachusetts, called Pills A-Poppin' directed by Tommy Tune, then 19.

Mulaney's parents attended Georgetown University and Yale Law School. They were at Georgetown and Yale at the same time as future president Bill Clinton (Mulaney has said he met Clinton in 1992). Growing up, Mulaney was an altar boy. He is the third of five children. He has an elder sister, an elder brother, a younger sister, and a younger brother who died at birth. His confirmation name is Martin, after St. Martin de Porres, to honor his late brother, Peter Martin, who died when Mulaney was four.

From watching the lifestyle of the character Ricky Ricardo on the program I Love Lucy, Mulaney knew he wanted to go into show business at age five. At age seven, he was a member of the Chicago-based children's sketch group "The Rugrats". Because of this, Mulaney had an opportunity to audition for the role of Kevin in the film Home Alone, but his parents declined. For junior high, he attended St. Clement School where, in lieu of doing reports, he and his best friend, John O'Brien, would offer to perform what they had learned as a skit. At 14, Mulaney played Wally Webb in a production of Our Town. He also frequented the Museum of Broadcast Communications, where he watched archived episodes of shows such as I Love Lucy and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He graduated from St. Ignatius College Prep in 2000. Mulaney then enrolled at his parents' alma mater, Georgetown University, where he majored in English and minored in theology. He joined the school's improv group, and met Nick Kroll and Mike Birbiglia. He later joined Birbiglia on his stand-up tour, which Mulaney cited as helping him overcome his stage fright.

Career

2004–2014: Stand-up career and comedy writer

After graduating from Georgetown in 2004, Mulaney moved to New York City with ambitions of a career in comedy, and was hired as an office assistant at Comedy Central. After a year, he pitched the idea for a parody of I Love the '80s called I Love the '30s, which he developed along with fellow comedian Nick Kroll. Mulaney was working at the network when Dave Chappelle abruptly left. Initially, the network had planned to fly Mulaney out to Los Angeles to secure the tapes for season three of Chappelle's eponymous show; instead, feeling it was a "hindrance to being a comedian", Mulaney quit and started working freelance. After performing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Mulaney was asked to audition for Saturday Night Live in August 2008, along with Kroll, Donald Glover, Ellie Kemper, T.J. Miller, and Bobby Moynihan. He did not prepare any impressions, instead performing stand-up with "charactery bits in them". Mulaney went in with low expectations, but thought it would be a "cool story". He won a spot on the writing team, where he remained for four seasons, writing the monologues for the hosts. He also occasionally appeared on the show's Weekend Update segment. He and SNL actor Bill Hader co-created the recurring SNL character Stefon. Mulaney was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series with the SNL writing staff from 2009 to 2012. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics at the 2011 Emmys with Justin Timberlake, Seth Meyers, and Katreese Barnes.

In addition to his work on SNL, Mulaney worked as a stand-up comedian. He has been a headliner since 2008. He performed at the 2008 Bonnaroo Music Festival. He has performed on Live at Gotham, Conan, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and Comedy Central Presents. Mulaney also released the comedy album The Top Part in 2009 and the stand-up comedy special New in Town in 2012. Both were produced with Comedy Central. In May 2013, NBC passed on picking up Mulaney's semi-autobiographical sitcom pilot, Mulaney. The following June, Fox ordered a new script while considering whether to order the production of several episodes. In October 2013, Fox announced that it had picked up the show for a six-episode season order. Mulaney was the creator, producer, and writer of his eponymous series. The series starred Mulaney, Nasim Pedrad, Martin Short, and Elliott Gould. The series was cancelled within its first year in May 2015. He has said he "wanted to do the type of live-audience multi-camera sitcoms that I grew up on". The series received poor reviews, including playwright and The New York Times TV critic Neil Genzlinger's, who wrote "It rips off Seinfeld so aggressively that in Episode 2 it even makes fun of its own plagiarism. But one thing it forgot to borrow from Seinfeld was intelligence."

2015–2019: Career stardom

Mulaney's third comedy special, The Comeback Kid, was released on November 13, 2015, on Netflix. The Comeback Kid received critical acclaim, with David Sims of The Atlantic calling it "a reminder of everything that makes Mulaney so singular: storytelling rich with well-observed details, delivered with the confidence of someone decades older than 33". During this time, Mulaney contributed writing to other TV projects, including Maya & Marty; Documentary Now!; Oh, Hello on Broadway; and the Comedy Central Roast of James Franco. He acted in supporting roles on television shows such as Crashing, Portlandia, and Difficult People. In 2016, Mulaney received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for The Comeback Kid, losing to Patton Oswalt's Talking for Clapping.