Jason Sudeikis

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Jason Sudeikis

American comedian, actor, and writer

Also known as: Daniel Jason Sudeikis

Written by Jacob Stovall

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Jun 3, 2025 • Article History

Quick Facts

In full:: Daniel Jason Sudeikis

Born:: September 18, 1975, Fairfax, Virginia, U.S. (age 49)

Married To:: Kay Cannon (2004–2010)

Movies/Tv Shows (Acted In):: "The Campaign" (2012); "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (2010–2011); "Driven" (2018); "Horrible Bosses 2" (2014); "Mother's Day" (2016); "Drinking Buddies" (2013); "30 Rock" (2007–2010); "Son of Zorn" (2016–2017); "Eastbound & Down" (2012–2013); "Epic" (2013); "The Ten" (2007); "We're the Millers" (2013); "What Happens in Vegas" (2008); "Watching the Detectives" (2007); "Detroiters" (2017); "Wainy Days" (2007); "Robot Chicken" (2013); "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" (2011); "Colossal" (2016); "The Last Man on Earth" (2015–2018); "Permission" (2017); "Tumbledown" (2015); "Bill" (2007); "Going the Distance" (2010); "J.T.S. Brown" (1998); "The Bounty Hunter" (2010); "The Line" (2012); "Magic Eye Shark Movie" (2013); "Great Minds with Dan Harmon" (2016); "Sleeping with Other People" (2015); "Sideswiped" (2018); "Portlandia" (2011–2014); "The Cleveland Show" (2009–2013); "Booksmart" (2019); "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" (2016); "Horrible Bosses" (2011); "Race" (2016); "The Trunk" (2013); "Semi-Pro" (2008); "Movie 43" (2013); "Hall Pass" (2011); "The Angry Birds Movie" (2016); "The Rocker" (2008); "Next Gen" (2018); "The Angry Birds Movie 2" (2019); "I Love You, America" (2018); "The Mandalorian" (2019); "Masterminds" (2016); "Kodachrome" (2017); "Childrens Hospital" (2008); "Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Summer Edition" (2008–2012); "aka Wyatt Cenac" (2017); "Downsizing" (2017)

Movies/Tv Shows (Writing/Creator):: "Garfunkel and Oates" (2014); "Saturday Night Live" (2003–2005)

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Jason Sudeikis Remembers Uncle George Wendt as “an Incredible Influence” • June 2, 2025, 11:05 AM ET (The Hollywood Reporter)

Jason Sudeikis (born September 18, 1975, Fairfax, Virginia, U.S.) is an American comedian, actor, and writer who first garnered attention for his work (2003–13) on the TV show Saturday Night Live (SNL) and later starred in the hugely popular series Ted Lasso (2020–23).

Early life and improv comedy

Sudeikis is the eldest of three children born to Kathryn (née Wendt) Sudeikis, who worked in the travel industry, and Daniel Sudeikis, a business executive. George Wendt, an alumnus of the Second City comedy troupe who played Norm Peterson on the sitcom Cheers, is an uncle. Jason Sudeikis and his family initially lived in Fairfax, Virginia, but later moved to Overland Park, Kansas. He was a standout player on his high school’s basketball team, and he later received a basketball scholarship to Fort Scott Community College. Once there, however, he soon shifted his focus to the school’s theater department. In addition, on the weekends he began taking improv comedy classes at ComedySportz (now Comedy City) in Kansas City, Missouri. Sudeikis eventually left college to focus on a comedy career.

Sudeikis moved to Chicago, where he studied at the Annoyance Theatre and the ImprovOlympic (later called iO Theater). In 1998 he cofounded the long-form improv group J.T.S. Brown. He also performed with the comedy troupe Boom Chicago in Amsterdam. In addition, Sudeikis was a member of the Second City Touring Company and was a founding member of Second City Las Vegas.

Saturday Night Live

In 2003 Sudeikis was hired as a writer for SNL, the landmark sketch-comedy show. In his early years with the program, he also made occasional appearances as an extra, and in 2005 he became a featured player, the lower tier of cast members. The following year Sudeikis was elevated to repertory player status. While on SNL he became known for his impressions of American politicians, notably U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, and Vice Pres. Joe Biden and presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Sudeikis often played the straight man, maintaining a deadpan and grounded affect to allow other performers to develop over-the-top characters to play against him. He left the show in 2013, though he made occasional guest appearances in the following years. In October 2021 he hosted SNL for the first time.

Hall Pass, Horrible Bosses, and We’re the Millers

While on Saturday Night Live, Sudeikis appeared in numerous other projects. From 2007 to 2010 he had a guest role on 30 Rock, the sitcom created by former SNL cast member and head writer Tina Fey; he was cast as Floyd, a love interest of Fey’s character. In the early 2010s Sudeikis played a recurring character on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a raunchy comedy series, and the sports dramedy Eastbound & Down.

During this time Sudeikis also launched a film career. In 2007 he made his big-screen debut, appearing in the romantic comedies Watching the Detectives and The Ten and in the dramedy Meet Bill. Sudeikis subsequently had supporting roles in the rom-coms What Happens in Vegas (2008), The Bounty Hunter (2010), and Going the Distance (2010).

Bigger roles followed, and in 2011 Sudeikis starred with Owen Wilson in Hall Pass, a comedy about two men whose wives allow them to take a break from their marriages for one week. That year he also starred in the popular comedy Horrible Bosses, in which friends decide to murder their bosses; he reprised his role as Kurt in the 2014 sequel. Both films starred Jennifer Aniston, and the two later appeared in We’re the Millers (2013), a road-trip comedy about a small-time drug dealer who forms a fake family in order to transport a drug shipment across the U.S.–Mexico border.

Taking a break from comedies, Sudeikis appeared in Race (2016), a dramatic biopic about legendary athlete Jesse Owens. His other credits from 2016 include Garry Marshall’s rom-com Mother’s Day, which also featured Aniston, Julia Roberts, and Kate Hudson. In 2017 Sudeikis continued to show his range, starring with Ed Harris in Kodachrome, a drama about a dying photographer and his estranged son. That year he also had a supporting role in Alexander Payne’s sci-fi drama Downsizing.

In addition to his live-action work, Sudeikis lent his voice to numerous projects, including the popular animated films The Angry Birds Movie (2016) and The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019) as well as the electronic games Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) and FIFA 23 (2022). He also did voice work on such TV shows as The Cleveland Show, Son of Zorn, and Scooby Doo and Guess Who?

Ted Lasso

In 2013–14 Sudeikis starred in a series of NBC commercials promoting the Premier League, an English football (soccer) league. He portrayed a blustering American football coach who is accidentally hired as a Premier League coach, despite knowing little about the sport. That concept was subsequently expanded into the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso. Released in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the feel-good series became a huge hit. At the center was Sudeikis’s Ted Lasso, an optimistic, folksy character prone to uplifting speeches. The series and its cast—which includes Brett Goldstein and Hannah Waddingham—received numerous awards, and Sudeikis won two Emmy Awards (2021 and 2022). Ted Lasso ended after three seasons in 2023.

Personal life

From 2004 to 2010 Sudeikis was married to writer and director Kay Cannon. In 2011 he began dating Olivia Wilde, an actress and director. The two became engaged in 2013, and they later had two children. In 2019 Sudeikis appeared in Wilde’s directorial debut, Booksmart. The following year the couple broke up, and their split became fodder for the tabloids.

Jacob Stovall

Saturday Night Live

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Will Ferrell performing with Queens of the Stone Age

Saturday Night Live

American television program

Also known as: “NBC’s Saturday Night”, “SNL”

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Apr 30, 2025 • Article History

Original name (1975–77):: NBC’s Saturday Night

Awards And Honors:: Peabody Award; Emmy Award

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Scarlett Johansson brings 50th season of 'SNL' to a low-key close • May 18, 2025, 2:17 AM ET (AP)

Saturday Night Live (SNL), American sketch comedy and variety television series that has aired on Saturday nights on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) network since 1975, becoming one of the longest-running programs in television. The series is a fixture of NBC programming and a landmark in American television.

Development and format

NBC developed Saturday Night Live as an edgy comedy series designed to appeal to viewers ages 18 to 34, and, notwithstanding a few slumps, the show has consistently attracted new viewers who have entered that demographic group while remaining a favorite with many who have moved out of it. The 90-minute program was created by Dick Ebersol and Lorne Michaels, the latter of whom continues as a writer and executive producer of the show, after having taken a brief hiatus in the early 1980s.

Each episode features the show’s regular ensemble of comedic actors, as well as a guest host and a musical guest. The show always begins with an opening sketch that ends with the signature phrase, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” Filming before a studio audience and broadcasting live (with Western time zones viewing a tape delay) has given the show its without-a-net edge and has led to many memorable moments, as well as a few controversies and missteps (perhaps most notably, in 1992, Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor ripping up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on camera, prompting an outraged response from thousands of viewers).

1970s style television set with static on the screen, on a small table with a doily underneath. (retro style)

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Not Ready for Primetime Players

Mixing topical and political subject matter with observational humor and parody, SNL borrowed elements from the format of British television’s pioneering That Was the Week That Was (1962–63, hosted by David Frost). But beyond those roots, from its inception it has been firmly grounded in the form of improvisational comedy developed in Chicago in the 1950s and ’60s by the Compass Players and at Second City. Indeed, Second City (both its original Chicago and its Toronto companies) and the Los Angeles improvisation group the Groundlings provided many of the performers who have made up SNL’s ensemble, beginning with its original cast, known as the Not Ready for Primetime Players—Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner. (This improvisation tradition also gave rise to Second City TV, which appeared first on Canadian television [1976–80] and then on NBC [1981–83], to the American Broadcasting Company’s Fridays [1980–82], and to the Fox network’s In Living Color [1990–94] and MADtv [1995–2009], among other programs.) Similarly, the brilliantly warped satire of National Lampoon magazine (and the National Lampoon Radio Hour [1973–74]) was another important building block of SNL’s irreverent comic sensibility.

Later cast members

The show’s changing ensemble has been the launching pad for countless performers who have become major television and motion picture stars, most of them developing recurring signature characters or impersonations on SNL. The following list only scratches the surface of those who have made their name on the show: Bill Murray, Al Franken, Don Novello (“Father Guido Sarducci”), Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Robert Downey, Jr., Dennis Miller, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Chris Rock, David Spade, Chris Farley, Sarah Silverman, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Molly Shannon, Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Andy Samberg, Fred Armisen, Jason Sudeikis, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon. The anchor chair of SNL’s fake news segment, “Weekend Update,” holds special prominence and has been notably occupied by Chase, Curtin, Akroyd, Murray, Miller, Norm Macdonald, Fey, Seth Meyers, Colin Jost, and Michael Che, among others.

Guest hosts and musical guests

The guest hosts tend to be celebrities on the rise or actors, including former cast members, with a new movie to publicize. There are a number of performers who have long been associated with SNL as guest hosts, including Steve Martin, Paul Simon, John Goodman, Christopher Walken, and Alec Baldwin.

From its start, the program also has been an essential gig for musicians, both for up-and-coming groups and singers as well as for some of the biggest names in the music industry, an eclectic array that has included Elvis Costello, Nirvana, the Rolling Stones, Garth Brooks, Radiohead, Run-D.M.C., U2, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Kanye West, and Taylor Swift.

Saturday Night Live was the recipient of numerous honors, including 90 Emmys and 3 Peabody Awards.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.