Colin Quinn

Colin Quinn is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer born on June 6, 1959, in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, where he was raised the son of two teachers. Of Irish descent, Quinn counts his paternal grandparents, who arrived from Belfast around 1920, among his family's roots. He attended Stony Brook University on Long Island but did not graduate.

Quinn began performing stand-up comedy in 1984. His first significant television exposure came in 1987, when he joined the MTV game show Remote Control as sidekick announcer, a role he held for five seasons. He also stepped in to host the show's final episodes in 1990 when regular host Ken Ober had a prior commitment to the series Parenthood. In 1989, Quinn hosted Caroline's Comedy Hour on A&E and collaborated with Ben Stiller on a comedic short and music video titled "Going Back to Brooklyn," a parody of LL Cool J's "Going Back to Cali." His writing credits from this period include work on In Living Color, and he co-wrote and produced Celtic Pride, a film starring Damon Wayans and Dan Aykroyd.

In 1995, Quinn joined Saturday Night Live as a writer and featured player, becoming a full cast member during the 1997–1998 season. He developed recurring characters and segments including "Lenny the Lion," "Joe Blow," "Colin Quinn Explains The New York Times," and Weekend Update, which he began anchoring in January 1998 following Norm Macdonald's departure. Quinn held that post until he left SNL in 2000, covering major news events during that period including the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and the Microsoft antitrust trial. During his time on the show, he declined an offer to play Scott Evil in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, a role that went to Seth Green and that Quinn has described as the only project he regrets turning down.

After leaving SNL, Quinn hosted The Colin Quinn Show on NBC in the spring of 2002, a live-to-tape program combining sketch comedy and stand-up that was cancelled after three episodes despite generally positive critical reception. He found more sustained success with Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, which ran on Comedy Central on weekdays from 2002 to 2004. The show featured Quinn as host alongside a rotating panel of four comedians debating the social and political issues of the day, accumulating more than 200 episodes over its run. His stand-up material also appeared in the animated series Shorties Watchin' Shorties, and in 2005 he participated in a USO tour performing at American military bases around the world.

Quinn's film work includes the role of Dooey in A Night at the Roxbury, Dickie Bailey — the childhood rival of Adam Sandler's character — in Grown Ups (2010) and Grown Ups 2 (2013), and Amy Schumer's father in Trainwreck (2015). He also held a recurring role as Hermie on the HBO series Girls. In 2015, he wrote and starred in the L/Studio web series Cop Show, a satirical production in which he played a pompous version of himself starring in a New York City crime drama, with guest appearances by Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Steve Buscemi, Dave Attell, Jim Gaffigan, Michael Che, and Amy Schumer, among others.

Quinn made his Broadway debut in 1998 with Colin Quinn: An Irish Wake, a one-man show co-written with Lou DiMaggio. Set at a wake in 1976, the show drew on Quinn's upbringing in Brooklyn's Irish-American community, with Quinn portraying various family members and acquaintances who gather for the event. His second Broadway production, Colin Quinn: Long Story Short, premiered in 2010 and was directed by Jerry Seinfeld. The show offered satirical commentary on world history from prehistoric times to the present, tracing the rise and fall of various empires. A recorded performance of Long Story Short aired as an HBO special on April 9, 2011, and Quinn received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance in connection with the production. His Broadway work spans the years 1998 to 2010.

Beyond Broadway, Quinn has written and starred in a total of seven stage shows. My Two Cents, which premiered in 2009, examined the economic decline of the American empire. Unconstitutional, which debuted in 2013, explored the United States Constitution and its influence on the American psyche. The New York Story ran in July and August 2015 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, directed again by Seinfeld, and drew on Quinn's experiences growing up in the ethnically diverse Park Slope neighborhood and the changes the area has undergone over the decades; the show was connected to his book The Coloring Book: A Comedian Solves Race Relations in America. Red State Blue State premiered at the Minetta Lane Theatre in early 2019 and examined contemporary American politics across the political spectrum. The Wrong Side of History followed in 2020. Unconstitutional, The New York Story, and Red State Blue State were released as Netflix specials.

In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Quinn number 56 on its list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time. Irish America magazine named him one of the Top 100 Irish Americans of the year in both 2004 and 2011. Quinn suffered a heart attack on February 14, 2018, in New York and recovered within days. On June 8, 2019, he married Jen Sochko, a producer on Late Night with Seth Meyers. In 2020, he published his second book, Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the 50 States, and directed the HBO Max special Colin Quinn & Friends: A Parking Lot Comedy Show.