Billy Eichner
Birthdate: Sep 18, 1978
Birthplace: New York City, New York, USA
Billy Eichner (birthname: William Eichner) is, for a generation of viewers, Craig on NBC’s hit sitcom, Parks and Recreation (2013-2015). But beyond his many television guises (from his semi-autobiographical character as Billy on Difficult People (2015-2017) and on Friends from College (2017-2019), Eichner has appeared in various forms in live-action and animated features.
His feature debut was a small role in the Ashton Kutcher comedy, What Happens in Vegas (2008), and his voice performance debut followed six years later in DreamWorks Animation’s Penguins of Madagascar (2014).
Billy Eichner continued the bird-themed work in animation as a vocal performer in the Columbia Pictures/Rovio Entertainment production of The Angry Birds Movie (2016), with Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Sean Penn, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, and Peter Dinklage. Eichner was also with Sudeikis in Leslye Headland’s rom-com, Sleeping with Other People (2015), with Alison Brie, Adam Scott, and Natasha Lyonne.
Eichner made his first of two movies with Seth Rogen on the comedy sequel, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016), with Zac Efron and Rose Byrne, followed by his acclaimed supporting vocal performance with Rogen (including some dueting with Beyoncé) in Jon Favreau’s The Lion King (2019). Eichner teamed up again with Hader for his biggest big-screen role to that point in the Disney holiday comedy written and directed by Marc Lawrence, Noelle (2019), with Anna Kendrick, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Julie Hagerty, and Shirley MacLaine.
Steering his own film project to production with the aid of Judd Apatow, Eichner co-wrote (with director Nicholas Stoller) and executive produced Bros (2022), the first studio-produced (by Universal Pictures) gay rom-com starring openly gay actors, including notably Eichner himself.
Personal Details
Billy Eichner was born in the New York City borough of Queens and raised in the New York area of the suburb of Forest Hills. During his childhood, he once parodied his upbringing in a spoof version of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” titled “Forest Hills State of Mind”: “I was born in Forest Hills/to a Jewish yenta/had my circumcision/Forest Hills Jewish Center.”
Eichner has commented that he “had very loud parents.” He performed in his first-grade school production in the fourth grade. After graduating from Stuyvesant High School in New York (where he performed in musical theater productions), Eichner attended and graduated from Northwestern University with a B.A. in Theater in 2000. Eichner’s height is 6’ 3”.
Filmography
actor
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- 2024 | Mufasa: The Lion KingasTimon
Mufasa: The Lion King
Mufasa, a cub lost and alone, meets a sympathetic lion named Taka, the heir to a royal bloodline. The chance meeting sets in motion an expansive journey of a group of misfits searching for their destiny.
- 2022 |
- 2019 | The Lion KingasTimon
The Lion King
After the murder of his father, a young lion prince flees his kingdom only to learn the true meaning of responsibility and bravery.
- 2016 | The Angry Birds MovieasChef PigPhillip(voice)
The Angry Birds Movie
When an island populated by happy, flightless birds is visited by mysterious green piggies, it's up to three unlikely outcasts - Red, Chuck and Bomb - to figure out what the pigs are up to.
- 2016 | Neighbors 2: Sorority RisingasOliver Studebaker
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
When their new next-door neighbors turn out to be a sorority even more debaucherous than the fraternity previously living there, Mac and Kelly team with their former enemy, Teddy, to bring the girls down.
- 2014 | Penguins of MadagascarasNew York Reporter (voice)
Penguins of Madagascar
Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private join forces with undercover organization The North Wind to stop the villainous Dr. Octavius Brine from destroying the world as we know it.
- 1997 |
Some Facts About Billy Eichner
Upright Citizen: Billy Eichner has been a member of the New York-based comedy troupe, Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.
Backup Singer: Eichner has performed (alongside Seth Rogen) on songs with Beyoncé for the 2019 live-action film version of The Lion King.
Gay and Proud: Billy Eichner, who has deployed his identity as gay and Jewish for his comedy, has noted that he knew he was gay from a young age.
Real-Life Portrayals: Eichner has portrayed a wide range of actual people (alive and dead), including Walt Whitman, Matt Drudge, and Taylor Swift.
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