Charlie Day

Day was born in New York City.[1] His family lived in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. He spent most of his childhood in Middletown, Rhode Island. He is the youngest of two children, with an elder sister named Alice.[4] His father, Dr. Thomas Charles Day, who is of Italian and Irish descent, is a retired professor of music history at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island; and his mother, Mary (née Peckham), was a piano teacher at The Pennfield School in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. She was of English descent. [5] His paternal grandfather changed the family name from Del Giorno to Day[6][7] to assimilate during WWII;[7] he died in a military training accident when his son Thomas was only four.[8]

Day attended Pennfield School and graduated from the Portsmouth Abbey School, both in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. He majored in art history at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts in 1998, where he was active in the Onstagers, Merrimack's student theater organization.[9] In May 2014, he gave the commencement speech for Merrimack's graduating class and received an honorary Ph.D.[10]

Day at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con

While still in college, Day was active in the training programs at the Williamstown Theatre Festival every summer from 1997, where he was a contemporary of actors such as Jimmi Simpson, David Hornsby, Kathryn Hahn, Justin Long and Sterling K. Brown. Day went on to play the lead role in Dead End, at the Huntington Theatre in Boston.[11]

After graduating, Day worked on small television roles, advertisements, and voiceovers for the Independent Film Channel,[12] and supplemented his income by waiting tables and answering phones for a telethon.[13] In the early 2000s, he had guest and recurring appearances on television shows such as Law & Order, Third Watch, Reno 911! and the short-lived sitcom Luis.

In the early years of his career, Day often made comedy sketches and absurd short films in his spare time with Jimmi Simpson, whom he was living with in New York City, and several friends including David Hornsby, Nate Mooney, Logan Marshall-Green and other actors, many of whom they had met through the Williamstown Theatre Festival.[14] These home videos served as the inspiration for several scripted short films he later developed with Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton in 2003, once he had moved out to LA. Among these home movies were two scenes about three struggling self-involved actors in LA getting into awkward and darkly comedic situations between auditions and jobs,[15] which went on to form the basis of the pilot episode of the comedy series that would go on to be known as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.[16]

In 2005, the first season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was released on FX television.[17] In addition to being a co-creator, executive producer and prolific writer on the show, Day plays Charlie Kelly, one of the main characters on the show. His performance received widespread recognition and has been the source of several memes through the years, most notably the Pepe Silvia conspiracy meme.[18] In 2021, IASIP became the longest running live action comedy on American television with the release of its fifteenth season.[19][20] The series is still ongoing with its sixteenth season set to release in 2023.

Day at the premiere for Horrible Bosses in August 2011

In July 2011, Day starred in New Line Cinema's Horrible Bosses with Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, and Jamie Foxx.[3] The film was a commercial success and Day's performance as Dale Arbus was praised by critics. He later reprised the role in the sequel Horrible Bosses 2 released in November 2014. Day had previously worked with Sudeikis in the 2010 film Going the Distance, starring Justin Long and Drew Barrymore.

Day hosted the November 5, 2011, episode of Saturday Night Live (SNL) with Maroon 5 as the musical guest. He was the second cast member from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to host SNL (after Danny DeVito, though DeVito hosted SNL before It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia premiered, the last time being in 1999; notably, however, DeVito would make a brief cameo during Day's opening monologue in this episode). Day would also make another brief cameo in the following season's episode hosted by Jamie Foxx on December 8, 2012, as a congressman in the episode's sketch "Maine Justice".[21] In September 2014, Day provided his voice for The Sims 4 TV spots.

In 2013, he voiced the character Art in the Pixar animated film Monsters University. Day also had a significant role in the Guillermo del Toro science fiction kaiju film Pacific Rim, in which he played biologist Dr Newton "Newt" Geiszler, who is the focus of the secondary comedic plot with Burn Gorman and Ron Perlman. He was cast based on his performance in an episode of Sunny as del Toro was a fan of the show. In 2018, he reprised the role for the sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising directed by Steven S. DeKnight.[22]

In 2017, Day co-starred in Fist Fight, where he plays Andy Campbell, a high school English teacher challenged by his co-worker, history teacher Ronald Strickland (Ice Cube), to a fight after getting him fired. In 2018, he had a role in Drew Pearce's film Hotel Artemis, with Jodie Foster, Sterling K Brown, Brian Tyree Henry and Jenny Slate.[23] Most recently, Day played his first leading role in a romantic comedy as Peter on I Want You Back with Jenny Slate for Amazon Studios released on February 11, 2022.

Day has also co-created and produced several television shows in addition to Sunny. In 2011 and 2012, he produced the short-lived comedies How to Be a Gentleman (2011–2012) and Unsupervised (2012), which were created by Sunny writers David Hornsby, Scott Marder and Rob Rosell. In 2017, he co-created the Fox sitcom The Cool Kids (2018–2019), starring Vicki Lawrence, Martin Mull, David Alan Grier and Leslie Jordan and set in a retirement community.[24] He served as an executive producer through its first season after which the show was cancelled. On August 9, 2019, Mythic Quest (2020–present), a new half-hour comedy series co-created by Day, McElhenney and Megan Ganz, who is also an executive producer on Sunny, was announced as one of the original productions for the then-upcoming streaming service, Apple TV+.[25] In addition to being co-creator, Day is an executive producer on Mythic Quest, which has been renewed for a fourth season.

In September 2021, Nintendo announced that Day would voice Luigi, in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, set to be released on April 7, 2023.[26][27] Day is also working on his feature directorial debut with the upcoming comedy Fool's Paradise (previously titled El Tonto), starring Ken Jeong and himself, and featuring Ray Liotta, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Common, Jason Sudeikis, Edie Falco and John Malkovich.[28] Day writes, produces, and stars as a silent man who becomes a celebrity and loses it all.[29]

Since November 2021, Day, McElhenney and Howerton have been releasing The Always Sunny Podcast. They set out to rewatch the entire series and share behind-the-scenes information, but the podcast's focus shifted to the banter and dynamic between the three creators.[30][31]

A skilled musician, Day can play the piano, accordion, trombone, guitar, and harmonica,[4] and has written or improvised most of the songs featured on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In 2014, he received an honorary doctorate in performing arts from Merrimack College, where he also delivered that year's keynote address.[32]

In 2001, Day met actress Mary Elizabeth Ellis.[33] They were already dating in 2004 when they co-starred as incestuous siblings on Reno 911!.[33] Ellis has a recurring role on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as The Waitress, the object of the unrequited love and obsession for Day's character.[33] The couple married on March 4, 2006.[34] They had their first child, a son named Russell Wallace Day, in December 2011.[34] They live in Los Angeles, California.[34]

Day has stated with uncertainty that he is agnostic.[35]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charlie Day.

• Charlie Day at IMDb