Kirk Bovill

Early life

Bovill was born in Wayne, Nebraska, the son of Judy Bovill, a teacher, artist, and writer, and Ron Bovill, a college professor, coach, writer, and former actor, who filmed national Wells Fargo commercials in the 1970s as Mark Twain. After attending Aurora High School, he headed off to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where he graduated in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in Biology. He coached women’s track as an undergraduate assistant at the school and was on the staff that won three national indoor team titles. He completed a master's degree in Journalism with a minor in Advertising at Louisiana State University in 1987. He coached women’s track as a graduate assistant and was on the staff that won LSU’s first two NCAA team titles. Also during his stay, he earned CoSIDA National Runner-Up Honors for writing the 1986 Track and Field Media Guide.

Career

Bovill started out at Hollywood’s The Comedy Store in the improv group that opened up the highly successful urban comedy show, Trippin’ on Tuesdays in 2006. The cast included Windell Middlebrooks.

He began his career in network television in 2007 as an armed enforcer in Hallmark’s Murder 101 opposite legendary Dick Van Dyke. He followed that with roles in a number of shows, including Criminal Minds, CSI, Ghost Whisperer, Leverage, Sons of Anarchy, Southland, and Days of Our Lives. His film breakthrough was British director Dominic Murphy’s dark drama, White Lightnin’, as the redneck killer Long which premiered at the Sundance and the Berlin International Film Festivals in 2009. The film is loosely based on the true story of Jesco White. Filming took place in Croatia.

That was followed up with several film roles including; the James Brown biopic Get On Up, with Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Taraji P. Henson and Chadwick Boseman, and helmed by Tate Taylor, Contraband with Mark Wahlberg, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Foster and Giovani Ribisi, Texas Killing Fields with Chloë Grace Moretz, Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, The Butterfly Circus, God Bless America, Paramount's Circle of 8, and Footprints.

Recent television credits include a guest star turn on American Horror Story: Asylum, Grey's Anatomy, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. In 2016, he appeared in the films Free State of Jones and 20th Century Women.

He plays the whacky coop player Dick in the video game Dead Rising 3 which was introduced at E3 2013. The game is exclusively available on Microsoft Xbox One and was developed by Capcom Vancouver. The game sold in excess of one million copies in the first month of release.

He has released two critically acclaimed CDs with his wife, Joni Bovill under their indie label, Elmo Records. They have appeared on TV One's The Gospel of Music with Jeff Majors and have licensed their music to films. Bovill wrote all of the songs.

Prior to entering into the entertainment industry, Bovill was an international marketing executive in high technology for a number of years. He’s been published in technical journals.

Before that, he spent six years in the collegiate coaching ranks at the University of Nebraska as an undergraduate assistant and Louisiana State University as a graduate assistant in track and field.

Personal life

Bovill married actress Joni Bovill in Negril, Jamaica. Joni’s brother, Henry Green, is a member of the multi-Grammy nominated Gospel group, The Williams Brothers.