Amy Sedaris

Early life

Amy Sedaris was born in Endicott, New York, the fourth of six children in a Greek Orthodox family. Her parents were Sharon Elizabeth (née Leonard), a homemaker, and Louis Harry "Lou" Sedaris, an IBM engineer. Her father was born in Cortland, New York to immigrants from Apidea in Greece, and her mother was Anglo-American from Binghamton, New York. Sedaris' mother was Protestant and her father was Greek Orthodox. Her paternal grandmother did not speak English and owned a shoe shining store in New York. Sedaris' mother died of lung cancer in 1991, while her father died in 2021.

When she was four, her family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where she grew up with her five siblings: Lisa, David, Gretchen, Tiffany, and Paul. Her sister Tiffany died by suicide in 2013. She recalled feeling weird in that new environment, as her family was not southern and followed Greek traditions. As a child, Sedaris liked playing dress-up and putting on plays for her family. In her brother David's book Me Talk Pretty One Day, he noted that she would often assume characters to play pranks on her family. As a teenager, Sedaris' first job was at the local Winn-Dixie supermarket where she would make fake announcements over the loudspeaker; for a while, she was determined to work at the local women's prison in Raleigh. She attended Jesse O. Sanderson High School and was a Girl Scout until she graduated.

At the age of 20, she and her mother worked together making and selling spanakopita. During that time, she was dating a man from Greece, and one evening after coming home from cooking, she found him unconscious on the kitchen floor. He had a brain aneurysm, and Sedaris spent the next three years caring for him. When they eventually broke up, Sedaris moved to Chicago with her brother David, and took classes at Second City and Annoyance Theatre. There she also worked as a waitress at Zanies Comedy Club.

Career

Television

In the late 1980s, she was hired to perform with Second City's touring company. It was there she met Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert, with whom she often collaborated later in her career. She and Dinello did not get along with Colbert at first, but they became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility. Sedaris left Second City in 1993, and moved to New York City. Sedaris's first major foray into television began in 1995 on the Comedy Central sketch series Exit 57, alongside Colbert and Dinello. For her performance she was nominated for the 17th CableACE Award for Best Comedy Actress and the series was nominated for Best Comedy Series. It ran for a total of two seasons.

Beginning in 1999 Sedaris played Jerri Blank, a middle-aged woman who goes back to high school in the Comedy Central comedy series Strangers with Candy. The series, which she co-wrote with Dinello and Colbert, was based on Sedaris's impression of 1970s-era motivational speaker Florrie Fisher. The show ran for three seasons. In 2005, a film adaptation was released, acting as a prequel to the series.

Sedaris went on to make numerous guest appearances on television programs, including Just Shoot Me! (2001), Sex and the City (2002–2003), Monk (2002–2003), Wonder Showzen (2005), My Name Is Earl (2006), Sesame Street (2006), Rescue Me (2007), The Closer (2009), The New Adventures of Old Christine (2009), The Middle (2010), Raising Hope (2011–2014), and The Good Wife (2012). She also hosted the series Film Fanatic on Trio.

Sedaris's talk show appearances include Late Show with David Letterman, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and WTF with Marc Maron. During an appearance on Chelsea Lately, she gave host Chelsea Handler a presentation on vaginal hygiene using a plush vagina created by fashion designer Todd Oldham.

In 2008, Sedaris starred as Principal Abby Hofman in the Nickelodeon television film Gym Teacher: The Movie, which was directed by her Strangers with Candy co-star and frequent collaborator Paul Dinello.

In early 2010, she had a supporting character in the Canadian comedy series The Drunk and On Drugs Happy Fun Time Hour. Later in 2010 she appeared alongside Paul Dinello in the episode "Mummified Hand", of the Discovery/Science Channel documentary series Oddities.

In 2011, she appeared in a series of commercials for Downy (Lenor UK) Unstoppables, a fabric softener product. Grey Global Group designed the commercials as "kicking the old 'mom' image with spots featuring 'laundry expert' (and accomplished lifestyle guru) Amy Sedaris".

In 2013, she replaced Kristen Schaal as the sex-crazed Hurshe Heartshe, in the second season of the Adult Swim comedy series The Heart, She Holler. She also appeared in third and final season. That same year, Sedaris appeared in a major recurring role in the Amazon Prime Video political satire series Alpha House, which was written by Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau. Sedaris played Louise Laffer, the Mormon wife of Nevada Senator Louis Laffer who lives with three other Republican senators in a town house on Capitol Hill.

Sedaris later had a recurring role as Pam in the Comedy Central sitcom Broad City (2014–2019), as Rita in the Hulu dark comedy series Difficult People (2015–2017). From 2015 to 2020, she portrayed Mimi Kanasis in the Netflix comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, for which she earned a nomination for the Gold Derby Award for Best Comedy Guest Actress.

In 2016, Sedaris appeared in the tragicomedy series Horace and Pete, as a character named Mara looking for a job at Horace and Pete's. She also co-starred with Chris Elliott in the Sony Crackle family comedy series Thanksgiving.

In 2017, Sedaris created the TruTV surreal comedy series At Home with Amy Sedaris, which she also wrote and executive produced. The series focused on the comedian's love of entertaining, crafts, and cooking. She played numerous characters, including herself, Patty Hogg, Ronnie Vino, and Nutmeg. The series was met with critical acclaim upon its premiere, garnering two consecutive nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series, and ran for three seasons.

Sedaris had a starring role as Janice Delongpre, a dispatch officer, in the CBS All Access comedy series No Activity from 2017 to 2019. She had guest-starring roles as Cathy in the HBO comedy-drama series Divorce (2018).

Voice

Sedaris has voiced commercials for the discount hair salon chain Supercuts and was WordGirl character Miss Davis for two seasons. She also voiced the Bandit Princess in Adventure Time. She narrated the PBS special Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America, a six-hour documentary on comedians and comedy in American history.

In film, Sedaris voiced Foxy Loxy in the science fiction comedy Chicken Little (2005), Cinderella in the animated fantasy comedy Shrek the Third (2007), Gravity in the family comedy Space Buddies (2009), Jill in the adventure comedy Puss in Boots (2011), Betty in the fantasy comedy Super Buddies (2013), and Aunt Ida in the English dub of the Academy Award-nominated comedy drama My Life as a Courgette (2016).

She voiced the role of Audrey Temple in two seasons of the podcast Homecoming (2016–2017). The series was later adapted into a series of the same name, starring Julia Roberts. Sedaris' character was portrayed in the series by Hong Chau.

Sedaris voiced characters in numerous animated series. From 2014 to 2020, she provided the voice for Princess Carolyn in the Netflix adult animated comedy series BoJack Horseman, a role which some critics consider her best work.

She also voiced various characters in the Fox adult comedy series American Dad! (2009–2012), Ma Angler in the Nickelodeon children's comedy series SpongeBob SquarePants (2011–2019), Lydia / Mina Loveberry in the Disney Channel action fantasy series Star vs. the Forces of Evil (2016–2019), the Zircons in the Cartoon Network coming-of-age series Steven Universe (2017), and Samantha in the Netflix adult comedy series F is for Family (2020).

In 2019, Sedaris voiced a Guinea Fowl in the musical drama film The Lion King (2019), which is a photorealistic animated remake of Disney's 1994 film of the same name.

In 2022, Sedaris voiced Suzanne in Meet Cute's holiday rom-com, Christmasuzannukkah. "I've always loved holiday movies. They're like comfort food and they never get old," said Sedaris. "Christmasuzannukkah really brings together the joy, drama and heart of the season, and it was so much fun to be able to do this in a podcast form."

Film

Throughout her career, Sedaris had supporting roles in a number of feature films. She appeared in the romantic comedy Maid in Manhattan (2002), the musical comedy School of Rock (2003), the Christmas comedy Elf (2003), and the fantasy comedy Bewitched (2005).

Her first leading film role came in the 2005 film adaptation Strangers with Candy, which she also co-wrote. She followed this with supporting roles in the comedy-drama film Full Grown Men (2006), the drama film Snow Angels (2007), and the ensemble comedy film Old Dogs (2009).

Sedaris had a large role in the comedy film The Best and the Brightest, which was released in 2010. She went on to star in the horror comedy film Jennifer's Body (2009), the comedy-drama film Chef (2014), the supernatural comedy film Ghost Team (2016), the mystery comedy film Handsome (2017), and the comedy film Save Yourselves! (2020). She also played the heart surgeon Dr. Ladenheim in Clerks III (2022) and also plays a sentient book, Jaunty, in Smurfs (2025). Sedaris will next reunite with Dinello for a remake of Roger Corman's science fiction film The Wasp Woman (1959). Dinello is set to write and direct the film with Sedaris starring.

Writing

In 2003, Sedaris co-authored the text-and-picture novel Wigfield alongside collaborators Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert.

Sedaris has contributed several articles for The Believer magazine since 2005. In a 2006 interview with the magazine, she answered part of a Q&A section with, "TURN-OFFS: The beach, having to pay for things, racist people, Orientals."

In 2006, Sedaris released I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, a guide to entertaining, which stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 12 weeks. In 2007, she was working with Dinello on a show for HBO, loosely based on the book, but the project never came to fruition.

In 2010, she released the crafting book Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People!. While promoting her book on Late Night with David Letterman in October 2010, she demonstrated how the cover can easily be made into a hat.

Theater

Amy has co-written several plays with her brother David, credited only as "The Talent Family": Stump the Host (1993), Stitches (1994), One Woman Shoe (1995), Incident at Cobblers Knob (1997), and The Little Frieda Mysteries (1997). The pair's The Book of Liz (2002) focused on cheese balls as a metaphor for "the cliches we all live by", according to Ben Brantley.

She played a role as the Stage Manager in Paul Rudnick's play The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told (1998) and as Froggy in Douglas Carter Beane's play The Country Club (1998), the latter of which earned her a nomination for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play. She had a role in David Lindsay-Abaire's play Wonder of the World and the stage adaptation of her book Wigfield (2003), alongside Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert.

Other work

In support of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)'s anti-fur campaign, Sedaris appeared as her Strangers with Candy character in an ad that reads, "When you wear fur, people laugh at you, not with you."

In 2007, Sedaris was featured in Dolly Parton's first mainstream country music video in fourteen years, "Better Get to Livin'.

She was the emcee for Microsoft's 2010 annual employee meeting in Seattle on September 28, 2010.

Personal life

Sedaris has run a cupcake and cheeseball business, Dusty Food Cupcakes, out of her home kitchen. Dusty was the name of her pet rabbit. She lives in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City.

Sedaris was in an eight-year relationship with her comedy partner Paul Dinello. After their breakup, they have remained close friends, with Sedaris being godmother to his two children. Sedaris has said in several interviews that she has never desired to marry or have children.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

Music video

Podcast

Theatre

Bibliography

• Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello. Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not (Hyperion, May 19, 2004)
• I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence (Warner Books, October 16, 2006)
• Sedaris and Dinello. Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People (Grand Central Publishing, November 2, 2010)

Awards and nominations

References

References

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