Kyle Mooney

Kyle James Kozub Mooney (born September 4, 1984) is an American actor, comedian and writer. He was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2013 to 2022. Mooney co-wrote and starred in the 2017 film Brigsby Bear, in addition to co-creating, co-writing, producing, and starring in the adult cartoon comedy Saturday Morning All Star Hits!

Mooney's work has appeared on a number of shows, including his man-on-the-street interviews, which were featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Sports Show with Norm Macdonald. Mooney has been a regular writer and performer at the acclaimed Upright Citizens Brigade since 2007. He has had a number of recurring TV roles, such as Rory on the HBO comedy series Hello Ladies and as Murphy Brown Fünke in Arrested Development.

Early life
Mooney was born the youngest in a family of three boys in San Diego, California, to parents Linda (née Kozub) and Brian Mooney. Linda is a former reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune, and Brian is an environmental consultant and planner. Mooney has two older brothers, Sean and Ryan. Mooney is left-handed and nearsighted.

Mooney's Marshall Middle School class chose him as the most likely to become a television star. He graduated from Scripps Ranch High School in 2003, where he won Best Actor as Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest and was hailed as class clown. Mooney studied film at the University of Southern California. There, he performed improv and sketch comedy with collegiate group Commedus Interruptus. After a six-week audition process in 2003, the three new members added to Commedus were Kyle Mooney, Beck Bennett, and Nick Rutherford. Mooney graduated from USC in 2007 from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Mooney is a self-described collector and owns a VHS collection that he started working on as a child. Through connections made while working on SNL, Mooney has been able to get his VHS tapes autographed by the actors who have starred in them. For example, Mooney owns a Beetlejuice VHS that was signed by both Michael Keaton and Alec Baldwin.

YouTube
Mooney started his personal YouTube channel (called "kyle" ) in September 2005, where he posted short comedy sketches. He was also a member of the channel GoodNeighborStuff, along with Beck Bennett, Nick Rutherford and Dave McCary.

Good Neighbor
In 2007, Mooney, Bennett, Rutherford, and McCary formed the sketch comedy group Good Neighbor. Bennett and McCary joined Saturday Night Live alongside Mooney in 2013 (as a performer and director, respectively), and Rutherford was hired as a writer the following year. In 2014, Good Neighbor was featured on NewMediaRockstars' Top 100 Channels, ranked at No. 98.

Saturday Night Live
Mooney auditioned to join Saturday Night Live in the summer of 2012 but was rejected; he auditioned the following year and was accepted, joining the cast during the show's 39th season. On September 28, 2013, Kyle Mooney made his debut as a featured player. At the start of the season 41, Mooney was upgraded to repertory status.

Mooney brought some of his YouTube characters to the show, including his person-on-the-street interviews, the 4/20 Weed-Smoking Guy, Chris Fitzpatrick, Todd from Inside SoCal, and Bruce Chandling.

His celebrity impressions on Saturday Night Live include Jim Acosta, Woody Allen, Criss Angel, Fred Astaire, David Axelrod, Jeff Bezos, Neil Cavuto, Lincoln Chafee, Bradley Cooper, Tom Cotton, Johnny Depp, Michael Jackson, Bruce Jessen, Steve Jobs, John Kennedy, Chris Kirkpatrick, Joey Lawrence, Macklemore, Howie Mandel, Chuck Norris, Rand Paul, Pope Francis, Axl Rose, Skrillex, Stephen Stills, and Steven Tyler. He departed the series after season 47, ending a nine-season run. In 2024, Mooney made a cameo appearance in the pre-taped sketch "Papyrus 2".

Other work
Mooney starred in and co-wrote the film Brigsby Bear, which premiered in 2017 at the Sundance Film Festival. He co-wrote the film with Kevin Costello over a two to three-year period, drawing inspiration from his own life, his interest in 1980s children's television shows and cartoons, and his experience making short films with Costello and McCary in middle school. Dave McCary directed the film.

In December 2021, the adult cartoon comedy Saturday Morning All Star Hits!, co-created, co-written, and executive produced by Mooney, was released on Netflix. He also stars in several roles. The eight-episode series is directed by Dave McCary and animated by Ben Jones. Mooney and Jones created the show based on a mutual love of Saturday-morning cartoon blocks from their childhoods in the 1980s and 1990s.

On March 23, 2023, it was announced that Mooney would direct the disaster comedy Y2K for A24.

Personal life
In 2021, Mooney married actress Kate Lyn Sheil.

When interviewed for the Substack newsletter Perfectly Imperfect in December 2023, Mooney revealed he and his wife had welcomed a daughter.