Thomas Middleditch

Thomas Middleditch (born March 10, 1982) is a Canadian actor, comedian, and television writer, known for his lead roles as Justin Frost in the 2009 romantic comedy Splinterheads^[2] and as Richard Hendricks in the HBO series Silicon Valley.^[3]

Early life

Middleditch was born and raised in Nelson, British Columbia.^[4] He was put into a play in grade eight that he said "changed everything" for him. He went from an indoorsy kid who was bullied, to becoming the funny, popular kid in high school, even being voted Valedictorian.^[4] He discovered improv in grade school from performing with Theatresports.^[4]

He briefly attended the University of Victoria before dropping out and moving to Toronto where he auditioned for and enrolled in George Brown College, but never attended classes.^[4] He instead opted to make sketches on his own, and worked at a New Balance selling shoes for an income.^[4]

He relocated to Chicago where he took classes at The Second City and iO Theater, while also performing regularly.^[4] Due to immigration issues, he'd work various cash jobs like walking dogs until Charna Halpern sponsored him to get his work visa.^[4]

While performing on a Second City cruise, he got an audition for Saturday Night Live.^[4] Though he didn't get cast, the routine he used in his audition landed him a network holding deal and he moved to New York City.^[4]

Career

Early work

While living in NYC, Middleditch began acting in commercials. In 2007 a sketch video for Chicken McNuggets he made with Fernando Sosa in Chicago was purchased by McDonalds and used as a commercial.^[4][5]

He appeared in the 2009 romantic comedy Splinterheads as lead role of Justin Frost.^[2]

On March 25, 2010, he joined a CBS pilot Hitched, written by Josh Schwartz and directed by Rob Greenberg.^[6]

On May 5, 2011 Middleditch made his first appearance in Jake and Amir, in the episode "Jake and Amir: Doobs".^[7] He has made several returns to the web series including on November 17, 2011 for "Jake and Amir: Doobs Part 2",^[8] on November 20, 2012 for "Jake and Amir: Doobs Part 3",^[9] on March 5, 2013 for "Jake and Amir: Movie Date",^[10] and on March 12, 2013 for "Jake and Amir: Movie Date Part 2".^[11][11]

On May 31, 2011, Middleditch joined the cast of the Paramount Pictures' comedy film Fun Size, directed by Josh Schwartz.^[12] On August 8, 2011, he joined Road to Nardo,^[13] a film that would have been Scot Armstrong's directorial debut. On December 12, 2011, he joined Jay Roach's The Campaign, starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis.^[14] In autumn of the same year, he pitched a cartoon called Worst Friends Forever to MTV, but it never made it to air.^[15][16]

On July 23, 2012, Middleditch joined the cast of the comedy film Someone Marry Barry, directed and written by Rob Pearlstein and produced by Barry Josephson.^[17] On August 23, 2012, he had a role on The Office's final season episode "The Farm".^[18]

He worked in a 2013 comedy fantasy film The Brass Teapot, directed by Ramaa Mosley.^[19] He also worked in a 2013 CBS Films coming-of-age comedy Toy's House, later re-titled The Kings of Summer.^[20]

Silicon Valley

On January 30, 2013, Middleditch joined HBO's comedy pilot Silicon Valley playing Richard Hendricks.^[21] The show would go on to receive widely positive reviews since its premiere.

He has said that the pilot was written with him specifically in mind as the lead (the character was originally named Thomas Pickering; the latter being his mother's maiden name).^[4] This was a result of a "random" audio sketch he once made for a stand-up routine which he would later animate himself and pitched to several people, including Mike Judge's production partners John Altschuler & Dave Krinsky, who would later create the show.^[4]

For his work on the show, Middleditch has garnered a Satellite Awards nomination and two Critics' Choice Television Award nominations. The show won Best Comedy Series at the 5th Critics' Choice Television Awards.^[22] Both Season 1 and Season 2 have been nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, and the show also received its first Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Comedy Series, which it lost to Transparent. Despite the show's critical acclaim, it is yet to garner an acting nomination, including for Middleditch, at either awards show.

Other work

On April 23, 2013, he was added to the cast of the comedy film Search Party, a directorial debut of Scot Armstrong.^[23]

Middleditch made a small cameo appearance in the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street.

He has played as a hipster thief in the episode "Sunday Funday" on the show You're The Worst.

On The Pete Holmes Show, he has played Nightcrawler and Gambit from the X-Men and Vega and Ken from Street Fighter II.

On October 16, 2013 it was announced that the Disney XD-produced animated series Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero would star Middleditch as the titular multiverse-hopping hero. The series premiered in late 2014.

On January 21, 2014, Middleditch was added to the cast of DreamWorks Animation's animated feature Captain Underpants, based on Dav Pilkey's book Captain Underpants.^[24] He is also starring in The Final Girls and The Bronze.^[25][26]

In 2015 he began streaming himself playing video games on the website Twitch.^[27]

Personal life

Middleditch has described his own upbringing as agnostic. He believed in a "classic Christian religion" at a young age, but is now an atheist.^[28] Middleditch and his costume designer girlfriend Mollie Gates have been together since 2012, and became engaged in June 2015.^[1] The two got married on August 22, 2015 in Middleditch's hometown.

Filmography

Film

Television

Web

References

External links

• Thomas Middleditch at the Internet Movie Database
• Thomas Middleditch on Twitter
• Thomas Middleditch on Instagram