Nick Kroll

Early life and education

Kroll was born in New York State, and raised in Rye, New York. He is the son of Lynn and Jules B. Kroll, a businessman who founded Kroll Inc., a corporate investigations and risk consulting firm. The youngest child in the family, he has a brother, Jeremy, and two sisters, Vanessa and Dana. He grew up in a Conservative Jewish family, and attended the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester. He went on to high school at Rye Country Day School. During this time, he also briefly attended The Mountain School in Vermont where he developed his fondness for hiking. In 2001, Kroll graduated from Georgetown University. He described himself as "a history major, and I minored in art and Spanish, but I found myself gravitating toward media studies as time went on."

Career

Kroll has been a contributing writer to Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show and MTV's Human Giant. Kroll's live work is a mix of standup, sketch and characters. He is well known as a performer for his characters: Bobby Bottleservice, Fabrice Fabrice, and Gil Faizon of The Oh, Hello Show, which he created with writing partner John Mulaney. His character work features prominently in Kroll Show. Kroll was honored with the Breakout Star of the Year award from the 2013 Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal, Canada.

Live performances

Kroll tours the United States performing stand-up and makes frequent appearances on comedy podcasts and radio programs. In 2011, Comedy Central aired his stand-up special Thank You Very Cool. He has studied and performed regularly at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in NYC and LA and co-hosted the stand-up show Welcome to Our Week with Jessi Klein. In November and December 2008, he toured with Aziz Ansari on his Glow in the Dark comedy tour in the USA. Kroll created a stand-up character, "Bobby Bottleservice." He has featured the character in a number of online videos for the Funny or Die website, including the Ed Hardy Boyz and an audition tape for the MTV show Jersey Shore. Most recently, Kroll has been touring the U.S. alongside John Mulaney in a show called Oh, Hello, with both in character as Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland, respectively. The show premiered on Broadway on September 23, 2016.

Television

Kroll's first significant career success came when he co-starred in the ABC sitcom Cavemen, based on the Geico-insurance TV-commercial characters. He genuinely called his role in the seven-episode comedy “the most important experience of my professional career”. He went on to VH1's Best Week Ever, and to guest-starring roles on Parks and Recreation, Community, and New Girl. He made appearances on numerous Comedy Central series such as Reno 911!, John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show, and The Benson Interruption, both performing as himself and in character.

Kroll had a starring role as Rodney Ruxin in the FXX comedy series The League, which aired October 29, 2009 to December 9, 2015. Concurrently, he created and starred in his own Comedy Central sketch series, Kroll Show, which aired January 16, 2013 to March 24, 2015. Kroll has a recurring role on Childrens Hospital on Adult Swim. His voice work includes the character Stu on the HBO animated series The Life & Times of Tim, as well as Andrew LeGustambos, the flamboyant, bisexual drama teacher in the animated Fox comedy series Sit Down, Shut Up. voiced to sound like a "modern day Snagglepuss", and as Reuben Grinder in the PBS Kids GO! series WordGirl. Kroll was one of the roasters on the Comedy Central Roast of James Franco.

Film

Kroll starred in A Good Old Fashioned Orgy and had supporting roles in comedy films such as Sausage Party, Dinner For Schmucks, Date Night, Get Him to the Greek, Adventures of Power, and I Love You Man.

In 2017, Kroll had a voice role as villainous mad scientist Professor Poopypants in the DreamWorks animated superhero film Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. Although many critics only either mentioned his character in passing, some pointing out his similarities with Albert Einstein, or his "committed" performance, Matt Zoller Seitz took particular note of his performance, praising it as "irrepressibly silly" with "an orange juice spit-take voice". Seitz further stated that "[t]he way Kroll savors every syllable of his alternately peevish, self-pitying and nonsensical dialogue—aided mightily by the animators, who've given the character a fireplug body and a waddling walk—transforms the ridiculous into the sublime."

Book

Personal life

In May 2013, Kroll began dating comedian and actress Amy Poehler. He is mentioned several times in her 2014 memoir, Yes Please. They ended their relationship in 2015.