Fred Armisen

Fereydun Robert "Fred" Armisen (born December 4, 1966) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. He is also well-known for being a cast member on the NBC late-night sketch comedy and variety series Saturday Night Live from 2002 to 2013. Before joining Saturday Night Live, Fred was the drummer for the 90's punk band Trenchmouth.

Armisen joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2002 as a featured player, along with Will Forte. He was promoted to a repertory player in 2004 for his third season. After 11 years as a cast member, he decided to leave the show, alongside his longtime castmates Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis and first-year featured player Tim Robinson. At the time of his 2013 departure from the show, Armisen was the third-longest-tenured cast member (behind Seth Meyers and Darrell Hammond), and he appeared in the second-highest number of sketches (856) of any cast member. Since then, Armisen has come back for multiple cameo appearances on the show, including when he hosted the Season 41 finale on May 21, 2016, with musical guest Courtney Barnett, which coincidentally, was the final episode for longtime cast members Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah.

With his comedy partner Carrie Brownstein, Armisen was the co-creator and co-star of the IFC sketch comedy series Portlandia. He also co-created and stars in the mockumentary IFC series Documentary Now! alongside Bill Hader and Seth Meyers as well as the Showtime comedy series Moonbase 8, alongside John C. Reilly and Tim Heidecker. He also voiced Speedy Gonzales on The Looney Tunes Show.

Armisen has acted in comedy films, including Melvin Goes to Dinner (2003), The Ex (2006), and The Dictator (2012). He is also notable for his guest-starring appearances in television shows such as 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New Girl, Broad City, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Difficult People, The Last Man on Earth, Toast of London, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Modern Family, and Barry.

He received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Comedy Album for Standup for Drummers in 2019. He has also won two Peabody Awards, one in 2008 as part of the Saturday Night Live political satire cast and one in 2011 for Portlandia. From 2019 to 2022, he co-starred and served as writer and executive producer on the Spanish-language series Los Espookys, which he co-created.

Armisen is currently the band leader and frequent drummer for Late Night with Seth Meyers house band, The 8G Band.

A drummer and guitarist, Armisen was tapped to be the bandleader on Late Night with Seth Meyers.