1. Fereydun Robert Armisen was born on December 4,1966 and is an American actor, comedian, musician, and writer.
49 Facts About Fred Armisen
1. 2.
Fred Armisen was the bandleader and frequent drummer for the Late Night with Seth Meyers house band, the 8G Band from 2014 to 2024.
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Fred Armisen is known as a cast member on the late-night sketch comedy and variety series Saturday Night Live from 2002 to 2013.
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Fred Armisen voiced Speedy Gonzales on The Looney Tunes Show.
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Fred Armisen has acted in comedy films, including EuroTrip, Melvin Goes to Dinner, The Ex, and The Dictator.
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Fred Armisen is notable for his guest-star appearances in television shows such as 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New Girl, Broad City, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Difficult People, The Last Man on Earth, Toast of Tinseltown, Our Flag Means Death, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Modern Family, and Barry.
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Fred Armisen received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Comedy Album for Standup for Drummers in 2019.
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Fred Armisen has won two Peabody Awards, one in 2008 as part of the Saturday Night Live political satire cast and one in 2011 for Portlandia.
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Fred Armisen was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on December 4,1966, the son of schoolteacher Hildegardt Mirabal Level and IBM employee Fereydun Herbert Fred Armisen.
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Fred Armisen moved with his family to New York as a baby, and briefly lived in Brazil in his youth.
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Fred Armisen was raised in Valley Stream, New York, where he was a classmate of fellow SNL alumnus Jim Breuer.
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Fred Armisen attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan before dropping out to begin a career as a rock drummer.
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Fred Armisen said that he was inspired to perform after seeing the Clash and Devo perform on television, and wanted to be a performer since he was a child.
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Fred Armisen's mother was Venezuelan, born in San Fernando de Apure, while his father was born in Soltau, Germany, to a German mother and Korean father.
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For much of his life, Fred Armisen thought his paternal grandfather Ehara Masami was Japanese.
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Fred Armisen eventually immigrated to the US, where he taught dance at what is Cal State Fullerton from 1964 to 1975.
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In 1984, Fred Armisen played drums in a local band along with his high school friends in Valley Stream, New York, but the group soon ended.
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Fred Armisen played drums on three tracks for Les Savy Fav's 2007 album Let's Stay Friends, as well as tracks for Matthew Sweet's 2011 album Modern Art and Wandering Lucy's 1996 album Leap Year.
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Fred Armisen is the music director and frequent drummer of the 8G Band, the house band for Late Night with Seth Meyers, since February 24,2014.
20.
In 2018, Fred Armisen played drums as part of Devo at John Waters' Burger Boogaloo festival in Oakland, California.
21.
Fred Armisen has landed several minor yet memorable roles that were defined by an interviewer as "feral foreigners" in comedy films such as Eurotrip, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Deck the Halls, The Ex, The Promotion, The Rocker, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, and Confessions of a Shopaholic, Cranky Kong's voice on Super Mario Brothers movie.
22.
Fred Armisen starred in the IFC sketch series Portlandia alongside Carrie Brownstein ; the first season debuted on January 21,2011.
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Since 2014, Fred Armisen has been music director and sometimes bandleader and drummer on Late Night with Seth Meyers, for which he received positive reviews for his deadpan comedy and especially for his interplay with the host.
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In 2021, Fred Armisen was executive producer on the documentary Charm Circle, directed by Nira Burstein.
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Fred Armisen joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2002.
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Fred Armisen was promoted to a repertory player in 2004.
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At the time of his 2013 departure from the show, Fred Armisen was the third-longest-tenured cast member, and he appeared in the second-highest number of sketches of any cast member.
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Since then, Fred Armisen has come back for multiple cameo appearances on the show, including when he hosted the season 41 finale on May 21,2016, with musical guest Courtney Barnett.
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Fred Armisen is part of ThunderAnt, a comedy duo with Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein.
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Fred Armisen has directed music videos for bands such as the Helio Sequence.
31.
Fred Armisen had a role in the Wilco documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which featured footage from his stint opening for front man Jeff Tweedy's 2001 solo tour.
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Fred Armisen appeared in video segments on Blue Man Group's How to be a Megastar Tour 2.0.
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Fred Armisen occasionally writes for Pitchfork Media and interviewed Cat Power for that company.
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In 2010, Fred Armisen briefly joined Joanna Newsom's tour for her album Have One on Me as his character Jens Hannemann.
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On SNL, Fred Armisen often plays musical instruments in sketches, has two recurring characters who are musicians, or impersonates famous figures in the music world such as Liberace, Phil Spector, Lou Reed, and Prince.
36.
Fred Armisen appeared in the official music video for Man Man's song "Rabbit Habits", playing a man who charms his blind date but runs away after she turns into a werewolf.
37.
In 2013, Fred Armisen appeared in the official music video for Portland, Oregon-based band Red Fang's song "Blood Like Cream".
38.
Fred Armisen would continue to appear in other titles from Rockstar Games, such as a pharmacist in Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto V as a judge on an in-game reality TV show, strongly parodying Simon Cowell, and Red Dead Redemption 2 as a host at an in-game theatre you can attend.
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Fred Armisen played the part of a salesman on TV who advertises for the Megastar Rock Manual.
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Fred Armisen drummed in the performance and was a backup singer.
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In late 2014, Fred Armisen was featured on the popular comedy web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with host Jerry Seinfeld.
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Fred Armisen is a longtime fan of punk rock music and can be seen in the documentaries Salad Days and The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead.
43.
In 2015, Fred Armisen was the recipient of Smithsonian magazine's American Ingenuity Award for Performing Arts.
44.
In 2018, Fred Armisen provided the foreword to The Yacht Rock Book by author Greg Prato.
45.
Fred Armisen appears as Michael on the sixth episode of the revival of The Kids in the Hall, released on May 13,2022.
46.
In 2024, Fred Armisen made a cameo as DJ Carl in Fallout, living in a shack surrounded by bespoke traps and playing colonial-era violin music, a reference to the oft-hated Classical Radio station from Fallout 4.
47.
Fred Armisen was married to musician Sally Timms from 1998 to 2004, and American actress Elisabeth Moss from 2009 to 2011.
48.
Fred Armisen is a fan of the Red Dead video game franchise, and voiced characters in Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2.
49.
Fred Armisen is a fan of black metal and death metal and has mentioned bands such as Immortal, Xasthur, Absu, Marduk, Satanic Warmaster, Beherit, Abysmal Dawn and Decapitated to be some of his personal favorites.