Thomas Middleditch

Thomas Steven Middleditch[1] (born March 10, 1982) is a Canadian actor, voice actor, comedian, and screenwriter, known for his role as Richard Hendricks in the HBO series Silicon Valley (2014–2019), for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, and Penn Zero in the Disney XD animated series Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero (2014–2017). He voiced Harold Hutchins in Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017). Middleditch also appears in ads for Verizon Wireless.[2][3]

Thomas Middleditch
Middleditch at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con
Born	Thomas Steven Middleditch (1982-03-10) March 10, 1982 Nelson, British Columbia, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Alma mater	University of Victoria
Occupation	Actor comedian screenwriter
Years active	2009–present
Spouse(s)	Mollie Gates ​ ( m. 2015; separated  2020)

Early life

Middleditch was born and raised in Nelson, British Columbia.[4] His parents are British.[5] He was cast in a play in grade eight which he said "changed everything" for him. He went from an indoorsy kid who was bullied, to becoming the funny, popular kid in high school. He discovered improv in grade school from performing with Theatresports.[4] his first Job was acting in Canadian Heritage Plays for his hometown.[6]

He studied at the University of Victoria before moving to Toronto, where he auditioned for and enrolled in George Brown Theatre School, but never began his course.[4] He instead opted to make sketches on his own, and worked at a New Balance store for an income.[4] He then relocated to Chicago, where he took classes at The Second City and iO Theater, while also performing regularly.[4] He was a founding member in 2005 of The Improvised Shakespeare Company.[7] Due to immigration issues, he worked various cash jobs until Charna Halpern sponsored him to get his work visa.[4] While performing on a Second City cruise, he got an audition for Saturday Night Live.[4] Though he did not get cast, the routine he used in his audition landed him a network holding deal and he moved to New York City.[4]

Career

Middleditch at SXSW 2016

While living in New York City, Middleditch began acting in commercials. In 2007 a sketch video for Chicken McNuggets he made with Fernando Sosa in Chicago was purchased by McDonald's and used as a commercial.[4][8] He appeared in the 2009 romantic comedy Splinterheads, portraying the lead role of Justin Frost.[9] On March 25, 2010, he joined a CBS pilot Hitched, written by Josh Schwartz and directed by Rob Greenberg.[10] On May 5, 2011, Middleditch made his first appearance in Jake and Amir, in the episode "Jake and Amir: Doobs".[11] He made several returns to the web series.

On May 31, 2011, Middleditch joined the cast of the Paramount Pictures' comedy film Fun Size, directed by Josh Schwartz.[12] On August 8, 2011, he joined Road to Nardo,[13] a film that would have been Scot Armstrong's directorial debut. On December 12, 2011, he joined Jay Roach's The Campaign, starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis.[14]

On July 23, 2012, Middleditch joined the cast of the comedy film Someone Marry Barry, directed and written by Rob Pearlstein and produced by Barry Josephson.[15] On August 23, 2012, he had a role in The Office's final season episode "The Farm".[16] He had a role in the 2013 comedy fantasy film The Brass Teapot, directed by Ramaa Mosley,[17] and played a police officer in the 2013 CBS Films coming-of-age comedy film The Kings of Summer.[18]

On January 30, 2013, Middleditch joined HBO's comedy pilot Silicon Valley playing Richard Hendricks.[19] He has said that the pilot was written with him specifically in mind as the lead (the character was originally named Thomas Pickering; the latter being his mother's maiden name).[4] This was a result of a "random" audio sketch he once made for a stand-up routine which he would later animate himself and pitched to several people, including Mike Judge's production partners John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, who would later create the show.[4]

For his work on the show, Middleditch has garnered four Satellite Awards nominations and a win in 2019,[20] and two Critics' Choice Television Award nominations.[21][22] In 2016, Middleditch earned his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance in the show.[23]

On April 23, 2013, he was added to the cast of the comedy film Search Party, playing Nardo, who travels to Mexico to win his fiancé back.[24] Middleditch made a small cameo appearance in the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street as a broker who is fired for cleaning his fish bowl during office hours.[25]

He has played as a hipster thief in the episode "Sunday Funday" on the show You're The Worst. On The Pete Holmes Show, he played Nightcrawler and Gambit from the X-Men and Vega and Ken from Street Fighter II. On October 16, 2013, it was announced that the Disney XD-produced animated series Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero would star Middleditch as the titular multiverse-hopping hero. The series premiered in late 2014.[26] In 2015, he co-starred in the films The Final Girls and The Bronze.[27][28] Also in 2015, he began streaming himself playing video games on the website Twitch.[29]

In 2014 he joined a CollegeHumor series on YouTube called CAMP.

Middleditch voiced Harold Hutchins in DreamWorks's animated feature Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017), based on Dav Pilkey's book Captain Underpants.[30] As of 2017, Middleditch has appeared in Verizon commercials as their spokesperson.[31] In 2019, he appeared in the MonsterVerse film Godzilla: King of the Monsters[32] and the basketball video game, NBA 2K20.[33]

In April, 2020, Middleditch and fellow improvisor, Ben Schwartz, starred in Netflix's first longform improv special, Middleditch and Schwartz, a series of three hourlong performances filmed at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.[34]

In fall 2020, Middleditch will play in the lead role of Drew in CBS comedy series B Positive which was written by Chuck Lorre.[35] The series was originally supposed to air in March 2020 but production was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however filming of the pilot had already taken place and so the show was moved to be CBS' only fall debut.

Personal life

Middleditch became engaged to costume designer Mollie Gates in June 2015.[36] They were married on August 22, 2015 in Middleditch's hometown. In a 2019 Playboy interview, he revealed that the pair have an open relationship and said that "swinging has saved our marriage."[37] In May 2020, Gates filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.[38][39][40]

In a 2015 interview with Straits Times, Middleditch said, "A couple of guys came to pitch us apps. One pitched an app that prayed for you, which is ridiculous. It takes away the point of praying and to pitch it to me and T.J., who are atheists, we were just like, "Oh... okay." But I thought that was funny because at TechCrunch, people are just scrambling for something to work."[41]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2009	The Rebound	Maverick
2010	Splinterheads	Justin Frost
	The Other Guys	Art Exhibition Curator
	Night Home	James	Short film
2011	Certainty	Game Guy
	Michel Jean-Michel: Overexposed	Michel Jean-Michel	Short film
2012	Being Flynn	Richard
	The Campaign	Travis
	The Brass Teapot	Gilad
	Fun Size	Manuel Fuzzy
2013	The Kings of Summer	Rookie Cop
	The Wolf of Wall Street	Stratton Broker in a Bowtie
2014	Someone Marry Barry	Kurt
	Search Party	Daniel Narducci
2015	SMILF	Dan	Short film that inspired the TV series SMILF
	The Bronze	Ben Lawfort
	The Final Girls	Duncan
2016	Joshy	Josh
	Sunspring	H	Short film
2017	Kong: Skull Island	Jerry	Voice role
	Entanglement	Ben Layten
	Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie	Harold Hutchins	Voice role; also songwriter for "Saturday"
	Once Upon a Time in Venice	John
2018	Tag	Dave
	Replicas	Ed Whittle
	Henchmen	Lester	Voice role
2019	Godzilla: King of the Monsters	Sam Coleman
	Zombieland: Double Tap	Flagstaff
2020	Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe	Garnoz	Voice role
2020	The Trial of the Chicago 7		Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2010	Robotomy	Additional voices	Episode: "Bling Thing"
2011	Ugly Americans		Episode: "Wet Hot Demonic Summer"
2011	Beavis and Butt-Head		7 episodes
2011	The League	Julian	Episode: "The Light of Genesis"
2011	Fact Checkers Unit	Kerry	Episode: "Fly Like a Buttress"
2013	Newsreaders	Micah Berkley	Episode: "Auto Erotic"
2013	The Office	Jeb Schrute	Episode: "The Farm"
2013	Key and Peele	Monsieur Thénardier	Episode: "Les Mis"
2013	Trophy Wife	Nurse Terry	Episode: "Lice and Beary White"
2013	The Pete Holmes Show	Gambit / Nightcrawler	2 episodes
2014–2019	Silicon Valley	Richard Hendricks	Main cast
2014–2019	You're the Worst	Hipster Ringleader	2 episodes
2014–2017	Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero	Penn Zero / Additional voices	61 episodes; also writer: "Ultrahyperball"
2015	Scheer-RL	Jeff Timons	Episode: "98 Degrees"
2015	Comedy Bang! Bang!	Himself / Tim Landers	2 episodes
2015–2019	Drunk History	Various	3 episodes
2016	Great Minds with Dan Harmon	William Shakespeare	Episode: "William Shakespeare"
2016	TripTank	Warlock / Caller (voice)	Episode: "TripTank 2025"
2017	Animals.	Simon (voice)	Episode: "Rats."
2017	Rick and Morty	King Tommy (voice)	Episode: "The ABCs of Beth"
2018–2019	Bob's Burgers	Alex (voice)	3 episodes
2019–2020	Big City Greens	Donny Tinselton, Bash (voice)	2 episodes
2020	Middleditch and Schwartz	Himself	Main role, also creator
2020	Solar Opposites	Terry (voice)	Main role
2020	B Positive	Drew	Main role

Web

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2009	Memoirs of a Manchild	Danny Nanners	3 episodes; also writer and producer
2010	The Back Room	Die Antwoord	Episode: "Steve Agee"
2009–2013	CollegeHumor Originals	Various characters	20 episodes
2011	Funny or Die	Woodshed Guy	Episode: "2.8"
2011	Matumbo Goldberg	Lenny	5 episodes
2011–2015	Jake and Amir	Penis Anthony "Doobs" Doubligner	6 episodes
2012	Bravest Warriors	Professor Fartsparkles (voice)	Episode: "Time Slime"
2013	The Funtime Gang	Randy the Racoon	Episode: "Pilot"
2013	The Morning After	Dave	5 episodes
2016	HarmonQuest	Dildo Bogpelt	Episode: "The Doorest of Fores"
2020	Stream of Blood: Vampires of Pittsburgh	Miles Vanderbuck	ongoing

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2013	Star Wars: The Old Republic - Rise of the Hutt Cartel	Additional Voices
2019	NBA 2K20	Zach Bailey	Voice role and motion capture

Awards and nominations

Year	Association	Category	Nominated work	Result
2014	Critics' Choice Television Awards	Best Actor in a Comedy Series	Silicon Valley	Nominated
	Satellite Awards	Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy		Nominated
2015	Critics' Choice Television Awards	Best Actor in a Comedy Series		Nominated
	Satellite Awards	Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy		Nominated
2016	Primetime Emmy Awards	Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series		Nominated
	Satellite Awards	Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy		Nominated
	Gold Derby Awards	Best Comedy Actor		Nominated
2017	Critics' Choice Television Awards	Best Actor in a Comedy Series		Nominated
	Satellite Awards	Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy		Nominated
2020	Satellite Awards	Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy		Won

References

1. Birnbaum, Debra (June 14, 2016). "Thomas Middleditch and Patrick Stewart on Doing Standup, Nicknames and Crazy Fan Encounters". Variety.
2. Dano, Mike (November 14, 2017). "The top 5 wireless ads: T-Mobile spends almost $30M on Netflix ads". FierceWireless.com.
3. Itzkoff, Dave (April 21, 2017). "Thomas Middleditch of 'Silicon Valley' on Doing Verizon Ads and Flying His Own Plane". The New York Times.
4. "BA #085: Thomas Middleditch". Box Angeles podcast. June 29, 2015.
5. McQuern, Elizabeth (September 15, 2006). "Inside With: Thomas Middleditch, Non-Comedian and Actor". TheApiary.org. Retrieved June 3, 2017.
6. https://www.unqualified.com/episodes/thomas-middleditch. Missing or empty |title= (help)
7. "Players". Improvised Shakespeare Company. Retrieved February 17, 2020.
8. "McNuggets McNuggets...What?". AdAge. July 27, 2007.
9. Debruge, Peter (November 5, 2009). "Review: 'Splinterheads'". Variety. Retrieved February 2, 2014.
10. Andreeva, Nellie (March 25, 2010). "Two CBS pilots add cast members". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
11. "Jake and Amir: Doobs". CollegeHumor. May 5, 2011. Retrieved May 10, 2015.
12. "Johnny Knoxville, Unique Blend of Cast Join 'Fun Size' Comedy". Bloody Disgusting. May 31, 2011. Retrieved 4 February 2014.
13. Sneider, Jeff (August 8, 2011). "Middleditch takes 'Road to Nardo'". Variety. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
14. Sneider, Jeff (December 12, 2011). "Middleditch in Warners' team of 'Rivals'". Variety. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
15. Kit, Borys (July 23, 2012). "Tyler Labine, Damon Wayans Jr., Lucy Punch Starring in Comedy 'Someone Marry Barry'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
16. Andreeva, Nellie (August 23, 2012). "Thomas Middleditch Cast As Dwight's Brother On 'The Office' Spinoff". Deadline.com. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
17. Debruge, Peter (April 2, 2013). "Film Review: 'The Brass Teapot'". Variety. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
18. Cunningham, Todd (January 22, 2013). "'Toy's House' Goes to CBS Films". TheWrap. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
19. Andreeva, Nellie (January 30, 2013). "T.J. Miller, Thomas Middleditch Cast In Mike Judge's HBO Comedy Pilot 'Silicon Valley'". Deadline.com. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
20. "2019 Winners". pressacademy.com.
21. Mitovich, Matt Webb (May 31, 2015). "Critics' Choice Television Awards: HBO, Better Call Saul, Taraji P. Henson and Amy Schumer Among Big Winners". TVLine. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
22. "Satellite Awards (2015)". International Press Academy. December 2, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2016.
23. Johnson, Zack (July 14, 2016). "2016 Emmy Nominations: Complete List of Nominees". E! Online. Retrieved July 14, 2016.
24. Kit, Borys (April 23, 2013). "'Search Party' Finds Its Stars, Begins Shooting Next Week". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
25. The Wolf of Wall Street. YouTube.
26. "Disney XD Orders Animated Series 'Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero'". Deadline.com. October 16, 2013.
27. Squires, John (April 11, 2014). "Four More Sign on to Tangle with The Final Girls Including The Vampire Diaries' Nina Dobrev". Dread Central. Retrieved April 27, 2014.
28. "Sebastian Stan can't out-fox Thomas Middleditch on The Bronze red carpet". HitFix. January 22, 2015.
29. "Twitch". Twitch.
30. Abramovitch, Seth (January 21, 2014). "Ed Helms, Kevin Hart Slip Into DreamWorks Animation's 'Captain Underpants'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
31. Itzkoff, Dave (April 21, 2017). "Thomas Middleditch of 'Silicon Valley' on Doing Verizon Ads and Flying His Own Plane". The New York Times. Retrieved June 4, 2017.
32. Kroll, Justin (May 31, 2017). "'Silicon Valley' Star Thomas Middleditch Joins 'Godzilla' Sequel (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
33. White, Peter; White, Peter (2019-08-20). "Idris Elba, Rosario Dawson & Thomas Middleditch Star In Sheldon Candis-Directed 'NBA 2K20' Trailer For LeBron James' SpringHill Entertainment". Deadline. Retrieved 2019-09-09.
34. Chuba, Kirsten. "Thomas Middleditch and Ben Schwartz on Convincing Netflix to Buy Its First Improv Special". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
35. Andreeva, Nellie (March 3, 2020). "Thomas Middleditch To Headline CBS Comedy Pilot 'B Positive' From Chuck Lorre & Marco Pennette". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
36. Webber, Stephanie (June 6, 2015). "Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch Engaged to Girlfriend Mollie Gates: "They're Both Very Happy"". Us Weekly. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
37. "Playboy's 20Q: Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch". playboy.com. Retrieved 2019-09-18.
38. "Thomas Middleditch and Wife Mollie Have Split After 4 Years Of Marriage". people.com. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
39. "Thomas Middleditch". Totally Laime (Podcast). January 11, 2013. 56 minutes in. Retrieved June 18, 2015.
40. migration (2015-05-04). "8 Questions with: Silicon Valley star and real-life geek Thomas Middleditch". The Straits Times. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
41. "8 Questions with: Silicon Valley star and real-life geek Thomas Middleditch". The Straits Times. SPH Digital News. 2015-05-04.

External links

• Thomas Middleditch on IMDb