Andy Samberg

David Andrew Jerome Samberg (born August 18, 1978) is an American actor, comedian, rapper, writer and producer. He is a member of the comedy music group the Lonely Island, along with childhood friends Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. Samberg was also a cast member and writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2005 to 2012, where he and his fellow group members are credited with popularizing the SNL Digital Shorts.

Samberg's starring film roles include Hot Rod (2007), That's My Boy (2012), Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012), Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016), and Palm Springs (2020). He has voiced roles in Space Chimps (2008), the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs film series (2009–present), the Hotel Transylvania film series (2012–present), Storks (2016), Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), and Zootopia 2 (2025).

From 2013 to 2021, he portrayed Jake Peralta in the Fox/NBC police procedural sitcom series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which he also produced. For his work on the show, he was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 2013.

Early life and education

David Andrew Jerome Samberg was born in Berkeley, California, on August 18, 1978. His mother, Marjorie "Margi" (née Marrow), is a retired teacher, who taught at John Muir Elementary School, and his father, Joe Samberg, is a photographer. He has two older sisters, Johanna and Darrow. His family is Jewish, and Samberg described his upbringing as "I wouldn't say we're super-religious, but we're very much in touch with the cultural aspect of it." Samberg never had a bar mitzvah.

He attended Chabot Elementary School with his future Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-star Chelsea Peretti. At age 5, he told his parents that he wanted to change his name to Andy.

In a 2019 episode of Finding Your Roots, hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Samberg discovered that his mother Marjorie, who was adopted by Jewish parents, is the biological daughter of a Sicilian Catholic father named Salvatore Maida, who immigrated in 1925, and a German Jewish refugee mother named Ellen Philipsborn, who had come to the U.S. in 1938; they met in San Francisco.

Samberg's adoptive maternal grandfather was industrial psychologist and philanthropist Alfred J. Marrow; through him, he is a third cousin of U.S. senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).

Samberg graduated from Berkeley High School in 1996, where he became interested in creative writing and has stated that writing classes "were the ones that I put all my effort into... that's what I cared about and that's what I ended up doing". He attended college at University of California, Santa Cruz, for two years before transferring to New York University (NYU)'s Tisch School of the Arts, where he graduated in 2000. While at NYU, writer Murray Miller was his roommate.

Career

Acting and filmmaking

Samberg majored in experimental film. He became an online star and made his own comedy videos with his friends Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. When YouTube was created in 2005, the streaming of their videos became much more widespread. Samberg became a featured player on Saturday Night Live in part because of the work he had done on his sketch comedy website TheLonelyIsland.com, which helped him land an agent and eventually get hired at Saturday Night Live.

Prior to joining its cast, Samberg was (and remains) a member of the comedy troupe the Lonely Island, along with Taccone and Schaffer. The trio began writing for Saturday Night Live in 2005 and released their debut album Incredibad in 2009. Samberg appeared in numerous theatrical films, commercials, music videos, and hosted special events, including the 2009 MTV Movie Awards.

In 2012, Samberg delivered the Class Day speech at Harvard University, and he starred with Adam Sandler in That's My Boy. The same year, he starred with Adam Sandler again in Hotel Transylvania as Jonathan, a role he reprised for its sequels Hotel Transylvania 2, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation and Hotel Transylvania: Transformania.

In September 2012, Samberg played Cuckoo in the BAFTA nominated BBC Three series Cuckoo; and, in 2013, he landed the role of Detective Jake Peralta in Fox's (later NBC's) police sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which first aired on September 17 of the same year. Samberg won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 2014 for his role as Peralta.

Samberg hosted the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards on September 20, 2015. Years later, he co-hosted the 76th Golden Globe Awards with Sandra Oh on January 6, 2019.

Samberg starred in Sleater-Kinney's "No Cities to Love" video along with other actors such as Fred Armisen, Elliot Page, and Norman Reedus. On May 16, 2016, Samberg and the Lonely Island performed their 2009 hit "I'm on a Boat" with classroom instruments on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, as part of a recurring segment on the show.

Saturday Night Live

In September 2005, Samberg joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player and writer. Though his live sketch roles were limited in his first year, he appeared in many prerecorded sketches including commercial parodies and various other filmed segments. On December 17, 2005, he co-starred with castmate Chris Parnell in the Digital Short show "Lazy Sunday," a hip hop song about a quest to see the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The short became an Internet phenomenon and garnered Samberg significant media and public attention.

Acclaim continued, especially for "Dick in a Box," a duet with Justin Timberlake that won a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. The video for his comedy troupe's collaboration with T-Pain, "I'm on a Boat," had over 56 million views on YouTube, after debuting on February 7, 2009. The song was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Another digital short, "Motherlover," also featuring Timberlake, was released on May 10, 2009, to commemorate Mother's Day. Outside of his prerecorded segments, he participated in recurring live segments, such as his Blizzard Man sketch. On June 1, 2012, Samberg's spokesperson announced that Samberg had left the show.

He returned to the show to host the Season 39 finale in 2014 and to star in the 40th anniversary special's Digital Short. He later returned in Season 50 to portray Doug Emhoff in the run up to the 2024 election, as well as providing some additional Digital Shorts.

Other pursuits

In November 2023, the first issue of Holy Roller, a comic written by Samberg, Rick Remender, Joe Trohman and illustrated by Roland Boschi, was released and published by Image Comics. It is about a pro bowler who is forced to quit his dream job and return to his hometown, which he soon discovers has been overrun by Neo-Nazis, leading him to become a trick bowling ball-wielding Jewish superhero.

Samberg co-hosts The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast alongside Schaffer, Taccone and Seth Meyers, which discusses the Lonely Island's SNL Digital Shorts.

Personal life

Samberg is married to musician Joanna Newsom. He described himself as her "superfan", and they met at one of her concerts in 2006. After five years of dating, Samberg proposed to her in February 2013, and they married on September 21, 2013, in Big Sur, California, with Saturday Night Live co-star Seth Meyers serving as Samberg's groomsman.

In March 2014, Samberg and Newsom purchased the Moorcrest estate in the Beachwood Canyon area of Los Angeles, California, which was associated with various historical figures: in the 1920s, it was owned by the parents of actress Mary Astor; prior to that, Charlie Chaplin rented it. The couple also owns a home in Manhattan's West Village.

They announced the birth of their daughter on August 8, 2017. The birth of their second child, a son, was announced by the Lonely Island's Jorma Taccone in February 2023.

Samberg, who grew up in the East Bay, is a fan of the Oakland Athletics and the Golden State Warriors.

Samberg was raised in a Jewish family, but considers himself "not particularly religious".

Filmography

• † — Denotes works that have not yet been released

Film

• 2007 — Hot Rod — Rod Kimble
• 2008 — Space Chimps — Ham III (voice)
• 2008 — Extreme Movie — —.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);clip-path:polygon(0px 0px,0px 0px,0px 0px);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px;white-space:nowrap}N/a — Co-writer
• 2008 — Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist — Homeless Man
• 2009 — I Love You, Man — Robbie Klaven
• 2009 — Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs — Brent McHale (voice)
• 2011 — Friends with Benefits — Quincy
• 2011 — What's Your Number? — Gerry Perry
• 2012 — Celeste and Jesse Forever — Jesse Abrams
• 2012 — That's My Boy — Todd Peterson/Han Solo Berger
• 2012 — The Watch — Casual Wanker #1 — Cameo
• 2012 — Hotel Transylvania — Jonathan Loughran (voice)
• 2013 — Grown Ups 2 — Male Cheerleader — Cameo
• 2013 — The To Do List — Van King
• 2013 — Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 — Brent McHale (voice)
• 2014 — Neighbors — Toga #1 — Cameo
• 2015 — Hotel Transylvania 2 — Jonathan "Johnny" Loughran (voice)
• 2016 — Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping — Conner "Kid Conner" Friel/Conner4Real — Also producer and writer
• 2016 — Storks — Junior (voice)
• 2017 — Take the 10 — Johnny
• 2017 — Brigsby Bear — Eric — Also producer
• 2017 — Puppy! — Johnny Loughran (voice) — Short film
• 2018 — Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation — Johnny Loughran (voice)
• 2020 — Palm Springs — Nyles — Also producer
• 2021 — America: The Motion Picture — Benedict Arnold (voice)
• 2022 — Hotel Transylvania: Transformania — Johnny Loughran (voice)
• 2022 — Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers — Dale (voice)
• 2023 — Self Reliance — Himself
• 2023 — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — Ben Reilly / Scarlet Spider (voice)
• 2023 — Lee — David Scherman
• 2023 — Good Burger 2 — Himself — Cameo
• 2025 — The Roses — Barry
• 2025 — Arco — Stewie (voice) — English dub
• 2025 — Zootopia 2 — Pawbert (voice)
• 2026 — Lorne — Himself — Documentary film
• 2027 — Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse † — Ben Reilly / Scarlet Spider (voice) — In production
• 2027 — Protecting Jared † — Post-production
• 2027 — 42.6 Years † — Ben — Filming

Television

• 2003–2004 — The 'Bu — Aaron — 8 episodes; also writer
• 2005 — Premium Blend — Himself — Episode: "8.4"
• 2005 — Arrested Development — Stage Manager — Episode: "Righteous Brothers"
• 2005 — House of Cosbys — Cosby Team TriOsby (voice) — 2 episodes
• 2005–2012 — Saturday Night Live — Various Characters — 139 episodes; also writer
• 2008 — Human Giant — Jonathan — 4 episodes
• 2009 — 2009 MTV Movie Awards — Himself (host) — Television special
• 2009–2011 — American Dad! — Ricky the Raptor / Anti-Christ (voices) — Episode: "Rapture's Delight"
• 2010 — Freaknik: The Musical — Chad (voice) — Television film
• 2010 — The Sarah Silverman Program — Troy Bulletinboard — Episode: "Smellin' of Troy"
• 2010 — Parks and Recreation — Carl Lorthner — Episode: "Park Safety"
• 2010 — Take Two with Phineas and Ferb — Himself — Episode: "Andy Samberg"
• 2011–2017 — Adventure Time — Party Pat, Bear, Rap Bear — 3 episodes
• 2012 — Portlandia — Andy — Episode: "Mixologist"
• 2012 — 30 Rock — Himself — Episode: "The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell"
• 2012 — SpongeBob SquarePants — Colonel Carper (voice) — Episode: "Hello Bikini Bottom!"
• 2012 — Cuckoo — Dale "Cuckoo" Ashbrick — 7 episodes
• 2012–2016 — Comedy Bang! Bang! — Himself — 5 episodes
• 2013 — 28th Independent Spirit Awards — Himself (host) — Television special
• 2013 — The Awesomes — Various voices — 3 episodes
• 2013 — Comedy Central Roast of James Franco — Himself (roaster) — Television special
• 2013–2021 — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Jake Peralta — Main role; 153 episodes, also producer
• 2014 — Saturday Night Live — Himself (host) — Episode: "Andy Samberg/St. Vincent"
• 2015 — The Eric Andre Show — Eric Andre — Episode: "Pauly D & Rick Springfield"
• 2015 — Major Lazer — Dr Nerd/Dr Bass Drop (voice) — 2 episodes
• 2015 — 7 Days in Hell — Aaron Williams — Television film; also executive producer
• 2015 — 67th Primetime Emmy Awards — Himself (host) — Television special
• 2016 — Party Over Here — —N/a — Creator and executive producer
• 2016 — New Girl — Jake Peralta — Episode: "Homecoming"
• 2017 — Michael Bolton's Big, Sexy Valentine's Day Special — Kenny G — Television special
• 2017 — Master of None — Nicolas Cage (voice) — Episode: "New York, I Love You"
• 2017 — Tour de Pharmacy — Marty Hass — Television film; also executive producer
• 2017 — Lady Dynamite — Himself — 2 episodes
• 2018 — Alone Together — —N/a — Executive producer
• 2018 — Bob's Burgers — Brett (voice) — Episode: "Sleeping with the Frenemy"
• 2019 — 76th Golden Globe Awards — Himself (co-host) — Television special
• 2019 — PEN15 — —N/a — Executive producer
• 2019 — I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson — Paul — Episode: "We Used to Watch This at My Old Work"; also executive producer
• 2019 — The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience — Jose Canseco — Television special; also executive producer
• 2019 — The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance — The Heretic (skekGra) (voice) — 4 episodes
• 2020 — Mapleworth Murders — Bran BcBillan — 2 episodes
• 2020 — Kal Penn Approves This Message — Himself (guest) — Episode: "Kal Penn Approves Voting"
• 2020–2022 — Never Have I Ever — Himself (voice) — 3 episodes
• 2021 — Baking It — Himself (host) — 6 episodes
• 2022 — The Boys Presents: Diabolical — Gary (Reception Guy) (voice) — Episode: "John and Sun-Hee"; also writer
• 2023 — Mulligan — Prophet Dave (voice) — Episode: "The Easter Egg Hunt"
• 2023–present — Digman! — Rip Digman (voice) — Main role; also co-creator, writer, and producer

Video games

• 2022 — Tiny Tina's Wonderlands — Captain Valentine

Awards and nominations

• 2007 — Primetime Emmy Awards — Outstanding Original Music and Lyricsfor the song "Dick In A Box" — Saturday Night Live — Won
• 2009 — Primetime Emmy Awards — Outstanding Original Music and Lyricsfor the song "Motherlover" — Saturday Night Live — Nominated
• 2009 — Teen Choice Awards — Web Star — Saturday Night Live — Nominated
• 2009 — Teen Choice Awards — Choice Comedian — Saturday Night Live — Nominated
• 2010 — People's Choice Awards — Favorite Web Celeb — Saturday Night Live — Nominated
• 2010 — Primetime Emmy Awards — Outstanding Original Music and Lyricsfor the song "Shy Ronnie" — Saturday Night Live — Nominated
• 2010 — Grammy Awards — Best Rap/Sung Collaboration — "I'm on a Boat" — Nominated
• 2011 — Teen Choice Awards — Choice Comedian — Saturday Night Live — Nominated
• 2011 — Primetime Emmy Awards — Outstanding Original Music and Lyricsfor the song "I Just Had Sex" — Saturday Night Live — Nominated
• 2011 — Primetime Emmy Awards — Outstanding Original Music and Lyricsfor the song "Jack Sparrow" — Saturday Night Live — Nominated
• 2011 — Primetime Emmy Awards — Outstanding Original Music and Lyricsfor the song "3-Way (The Golden Rule)" — Saturday Night Live — Nominated
• 2012 — Teen Choice Awards — Choice Comedian — Saturday Night Live — Nominated
• 2014 — People's Choice Awards — Best Actor in a New TV Series — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2014 — Golden Globe Awards — Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Won
• 2014 — American Comedy Awards — Best Comedy Actor – TV — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Won
• 2014 — Teen Choice Awards — Choice TV Actor: Comedy — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2014 — EWwy Award — Best Actor, Comedy — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2015 — Screen Actors Guild Awards — Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2015 — Teen Choice Awards — Choice TV Actor: Comedy — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2015 — Primetime Emmy Awards — Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special — Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special — Nominated
• 2016 — People's Choice Awards — Favorite Comedic TV Actor — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2016 — Teen Choice Awards — Choice TV Actor: Comedy — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2016 — Poppy Awards — Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Won
• 2017 — People's Choice Awards — Favorite Comedic TV Actor — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2017 — Teen Choice Award — Choice Comedy TV Actor — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2018 — Teen Choice Awards — Choice Comedy TV Actor — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2019 — Critics' Choice Awards — Best Actor in a Comedy Series — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2019 — Teen Choice Awards — Choice Comedy TV Actor — Brooklyn Nine-Nine — Nominated
• 2019 — Primetime Emmy Awards — Outstanding Variety Special (Live) — The 76th Annual Golden Globes Awards — Nominated
• 2021 — Critics' Choice Super Awards — Best Actor in a Science Fiction/Fantasy Movie — Palm Springs — Won
• 2021 — Satellite Awards — Best Actor – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical — Palm Springs — Nominated
• 2021 — Satellite Awards — Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical — Palm Springs — Nominated
• 2021 — Golden Globe Awards — Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy — Palm Springs — Nominated
• 2021 — Golden Globe Awards — Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy — Palm Springs — Nominated
• 2021 — Critics' Choice Movie Awards — Best Comedy — Palm Springs — Won
• 2021 — Primetime Emmy Awards — Outstanding Comedy Series — PEN15 — Nominated
• 2022 — Primetime Emmy Awards — Outstanding Short Form Animated Program — The Boys Presents: Diabolical: John and Sun-Hee — Nominated
• 2023 — Kids' Choice Awards — Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie (Male) — Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers — Nominated
• 2023 — Kids' Choice Awards — Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie (Male) — Hotel Transylvania: Transformania — Nominated
• 2025 — Las Culturistas Culture Awards — Creatine Award For Straight Male Excellence — Various Works — Won