Kevin Farley
Kevin Farley is an actor, born 1965.
Three of his earliest credits are walk-ons in his brother's films: a guy at a party in Tommy Boy, a bouncer in Black Sheep, a policeman in Beverly Hills Ninja. Farley, born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1965, is the younger brother of Chris Farley, who died in 1997, and that fact organises the first decade of his filmography whether or not it should.
What he built afterwards is a working comic actor's career: sitcom guest spots on Just Shoot Me!, Joey, Drake & Josh and True Jackson, VP, supporting parts in broad comedies, and a lead in David Zucker's An American Carol in 2008, the only top-billed role in this list. He plays a specific American type well, the loud, aggrieved, physically large man who is certain he is being reasonable, and he commits to it without hedging.
The interesting outlier is The Straight Story, a slow, gentle drama in which he has no jokes to fall back on at all, and he is fine in it, which is more than the rest of his filmography would predict.
Voice work has been the steadiest employment of the later years, particularly Babe Bonfiglio across the run of F is for Family, where the size of the performance suits an animated form that can absorb it. He also appears as himself in the documentary about his brother.
Movies (19)
- The Waterboy (1998)
- Tommy Boy (1995)
- The Straight Story (1999)
- Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)
- Black Sheep (1996)
- Johnson Family Vacation (2004)
- Eight Crazy Nights (2002)
- An American Carol (2008)
- I Am Chris Farley (2015)
- Paranormal Movie (2013)
- Paranormal Movie (2013)
- Blonde and Blonder (2008)
- Dog Gone (2008)
- The Third Wheel (2002)
- Boy Toy (2011)
- Love Stinks (1999)
- The Truth About Santa Claus (2020)
- Merry Ex-Mas (2014)
- LA Blues (2007)
TV (7)
Where to start with Kevin Farley
The best sustained work here, and the easiest recommendation, is F is for Family. Animation gives him room for a big voice without needing a big face, and the show's register suits the size of what he does.
The Straight Story is the one that will surprise you, and it is a genuinely beautiful film that happens to have him in it. The Waterboy is the most-watched thing he appears in, An American Carol is the lead role and a broad political comedy you will know within five minutes whether you want, and Eight Crazy Nights is more voice work in a rougher register. For the beginning of the story, Tommy Boy and Black Sheep contain the bit parts, and I Am Chris Farley is where he speaks about it directly.