Billy Eichner
Date of Birth: September 17, 1978
Billy Eichner was born in New York City and grew up in the borough of Queens, later graduating from Stuyvesant High School in 1996. Billy then attended Northwestern University, earning a bachelor’s degree in theater in 2000.
His career began in earnest after he gained attention as the host and writer of Creation Nation: A Live Talk Show, a critically acclaimed stage show in New York. He has also appeared as a guest correspondent on the Conan O'Brien late night talk show, and as a host for Funny or Die’s Billy on the Street video shorts.
Billy has been a regular on several other talk shows over the years, including Live! with Kelly, Watch What Happens: Live, Today, The View, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Billy landed his first credited acting role in the Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz rom-com What Happens in Vegas (2006) in the small role of "Band Leader." His next screen roles were on the comedy TV series The Millers (2014) and New Girl (2014), while also getting his first taste of voicework in DreamWorks Animation’s Penguins of Madagascar (2014). It was during this time that he had a recurring role on the hit animated series Bob’s Burgers (2013-2018). His next live-action role came as an SLAA Speaker in the comedy Sleeping with Other People (2015) before earning a recurring role as Craig Middlebrooks on the hit series Parks and Recreation (2013-2015).
Billy appeared as a guest star on Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in 2016, played Oliver Studebaker in the comedy film Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016), and lent his voice as Chef Pig and Phillip for Sony’s animated film The Angry Birds Movie (2016). He got his first starring role in the Hulu series Difficult People (2015-2017) as Billy Epstein, while also appearing in the comedy film Most Likely to Murder (2018).
He later landed a recurring role on the FX series American Horror Story (2017-2018) while also voicing himself for the long-running animated shows The Simpsons (2018) and Family Guy (2018). He later appeared as the recurring character Felix on eight episodes of the Netflix comedy series Friends from College (2017-2019).
Billy, who says his favorite Disney film is The Little Mermaid (1989), can currently be heard as the voice of Timon in Disney’s highly anticipated live-action reimagining of The Lion King (2019).