Keir O'Donnell

Keir O'Donnell (born 8 November 1978) is an Australian-born American actor. O'Donnell is best known for his roles in the comedy films Wedding Crashers and Paul Blart: Mall Cop. He has also made guest appearances in the television series Lost, CSI, The Closer, Sons of Anarchy, United States of Tara.

Early life

O'Donnell was born in Sydney to an Australian father of Irish descent and an English mother. He grew up in the suburb of St Ives, outside of Sydney. When he was eight years old he and his family moved to Harvard, Massachusetts, United States. He has one sibling, a brother, Patrick, who is eighteen months older. ^{[citation needed]}

O'Donnell attended high school at The Bromfield School in Harvard, Massachusetts. The Bromfield School has a renowned drama department, and he was involved in numerous productions both on the festival circuit and in community theater.^[1] In 1996 he was awarded a Massachusetts High School Drama Guild Acting Scholarship. Upon graduation he joined the first class of the newly created four-year classical theatre acting conservatory at The Hartt School in Hartford, Connecticut. The Hartt School of Theatre was established by Malcolm Morrison and Alan Rust (North Carolina School of the Arts). At the Hartt School he performed in numerous plays including Three Sisters, Lysistrata, Twelfth Night, Philadelphia Here I Come, and played Romeo in Romeo and Juliet opposite Hannah Mello, founder of B.Mello Productions. He graduated in 2000 and was promptly accepted into the prestigious Hartford Stage Co. Regional Theatre under the tutelage of Michael Wilson. While there he appeared in Macbeth and A Christmas Carol. ^{[citation needed]}

At the beginning of 2001, O'Donnell moved to Los Angeles to pursue work in film and television. In the fall of 2001 he was cast as a lead in the US premiere of The Man Who Never Yet Saw Woman's Nakedness by Moritz Rinke, at The Odyssey Theatre in West Los Angeles. The performances were produced in cooperation with The Goethe Institute. It was well received and became a "Pick of the Week" in LA Weekly.

Feature films

After several student and independent films, O'Donnell landed the role of Todd Cleary in Wedding Crashers. The film went on to become the highest grossing R-Rated comedy of all time. Not long after Crashers, Vince Vaughn invited O'Donnell to join him on the road for his Wild West Comedy Tour, a tour that hit 30 cities in 30 days across the country. ^{[citation needed]}

O'Donnell would appear on stage with Vaughn as a special guest doing improv skits. The tour was filmed and can be seen as the documentary: Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show. In 2002, he played the role of Todd Jarvis in the movie Splat! He was a troubled teen who played paintball to help him succeed. O'Donnell re-teamed with Vaughn for The Break-Up. O'Donnell costarred in the indie comedy Flakes with Aaron Stanford and Zooey Deschanel. It was premiered at the 2007 South By Southwest Film Festival. O'Donnell plays a car thief who shows Tim Robbins how to disable car alarms in director/writer Henry Bean's second film Noise. The film was featured at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. ^{[citation needed]}

O'Donnell appeared as the villain Veck Simms in Paul Blart: Mall Cop starring Kevin James. His character turns out to be a bad guy and attempt to take over the mall. He appeared in the 2010 romantic comedy When in Rome, with Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel. The same year he had a cameo in The Mother of Invention.

Television work

O'Donnell has also been in numerous television projects including the hit ABC show Lost (episode 10), an episode of the CBS show CSI (episode "Up in Smoke"), and an episode of The Closer ("No Good Deed"). He has made several appearances on the first season of the FX series Sons of Anarchy. He appeared in an episode of the FX TV show, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia in the episode "Mac and Charlie Die pt. 2", which aired on 2 October 2008.

O'Donnell was part of the main cast of the ABC documentary-style dramedy television series My Generation, which premiered in Fall 2010, and was canceled after two episodes.^[2]

In 2011, he had a recurring role on the Showtime series United States of Tara, appearing for the second half of the third season as Evan, Kate's love interest.

Filmography

References

External links

• Official website
• Keir O'Donnell at the Internet Movie Database