Danny Pudi
Danny Pudi is an actor, born 1979.
Danny Pudi was born in Chicago in 1979, and the catalogue effectively starts him in 2009: a bit part in Road Trip: Beer Pong, and then Abed Nadir on Community, the sitcom about a community college study group that spent from 2009 to 2015 arguing with the medium it was made in. Abed brought him three Critics' Choice nominations for supporting actor in a comedy and one from the TCA.
The performance is stranger than its reputation. Abed is the show's resident critic, the character who narrates the structure of an episode while the episode is happening, and Pudi plays him with a flat, careful courtesy that lets the analysis land as observation rather than as a joke about a nerd. He never asks you to feel sorry for him, which is the hardest choice in the part.
Since 2020 he has been Brad Bakshi on Mythic Quest, the same precision aimed at cruelty, and he has built a parallel career in voice booths: Huey Duck on the 2017 DuckTales, Brainy in Smurfs: The Lost Village, Bumblebee on Transformers: EarthSpark, plus Clone High, Strange Planet and Kiff.
Film has mostly used him a scene at a time, as a technician in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as Fi'Ja in Star Trek Beyond, as Sanjay in The Guilt Trip. Television has been more generous, with Powerless, Better Things, The Guest Book and the 2024 Avatar: The Last Airbender, where he plays Sai. He directs too, which the credits here do not show.
Movies (17)
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
- Prep & Landing: The Snowball Protocol (2025)
- Star Trek Beyond (2016)
- Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017)
- Hoodwinked Too! Hood VS. Evil (2011)
- Somebody I Used to Know (2023)
- Corner Office (2023)
- The Guilt Trip (2012)
- Advanced Television Production - 5 Days, 2 Scripts, No Sleep (2014)
- Road Trip: Beer Pong (2009)
- Flora & Ulysses (2021)
- Knights of Badassdom (2014)
- Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant (2015)
- Harmontown (2014)
- The Pretty One (2014)
- American Dreamer (2022)
- The Argument (2020)
TV (17)
- Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024)
- Community (2009)
- DuckTales (2017)
- The Soup (2004)
- Mythic Quest (2020)
- Angie Tribeca (2016)
- Kiff (2023)
- Transformers: EarthSpark (2022)
- Better Things (2016)
- Clone High (2023)
- Calls (2021)
- Chibiverse (2022)
- The Guest Book (2017)
- Strange Planet (2023)
- Powerless (2017)
- Going Dutch (2025)
- Do You Want to See a Dead Body? (2017)
Where to start with Danny Pudi
Community is the only sensible entry point, and Abed is why its parody episodes work at all: he is the character who notices the format changing. Give it three episodes and you will know.
From there, Mythic Quest is the same instrument turned unpleasant, and it is the better argument that he can hold a scene without a laugh track behind him. The voice work is genuinely good and genuinely everywhere, so pick by household: DuckTales if there are children, Strange Planet if there are not, Transformers: EarthSpark if there are and they have opinions. Avatar: The Last Airbender puts him in straight drama, the least explored part of his range, while Star Trek Beyond is a curiosity rather than a reason to watch anything.