Matt Walsh
Matt Walsh is an actor, born 1964.
Walsh is a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade, the improv troupe that shaped a generation of American comic actors, and he co-starred in both its original television series and the 2015 reboot. He was a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and he headlined a couple of short-lived comedies, Dog Bites Man and Players, that almost nobody watched.
His specialty is the confidently wrong middle manager. He underplays everything, which is exactly why he is funny: he does not perform the joke, he performs a man who has no idea he is inside one. Mike McLintock in Veep is the definitive version, a press secretary permanently half a beat behind the news he is supposed to be shaping, and it brought two Primetime Emmy nominations.
Beyond that he has assembled one of the largest small-part filmographies in modern American comedy. Bad Santa, Old School, Step Brothers, The Hangover, Role Models, Due Date, Ghostbusters, Office Christmas Party: usually two scenes, usually a man whose job title comfortably exceeds his competence. Directors keep calling because he can be dropped into any setup and improvise a plausible idiot on the first take.
He is used straight far less often, which is a waste. He is good in the margins of Widows, he is the best thing in the strange tonal register of Brigsby Bear, and Suncoast showed he can play a scene with no punchline in it at all.
Movies (52)
- The Hangover (2009)
- Ted (2012)
- Old School (2003)
- Movie 43 (2013)
- Novocaine (2025)
- The Perfect Date (2019)
- Ghostbusters (2016)
- Step Brothers (2008)
- Due Date (2010)
- Into the Storm (2014)
- Drillbit Taylor (2008)
- Widows (2018)
- Keeping Up with the Joneses (2016)
- Get Hard (2015)
- Relationship Goals (2026)
- Starsky & Hutch (2004)
- Flamin' Hot (2023)
- Role Models (2008)
- The Do-Over (2016)
- Christmas with the Kranks (2004)
- Bad Santa (2003)
- Office Christmas Party (2016)
- Be Kind Rewind (2008)
- Life of the Party (2018)
- Semi-Pro (2008)
- You People (2023)
- Father of the Bride (2022)
- Sex Ed (2014)
- Suncoast (2024)
- The Brass Teapot (2012)
TV (17)
- Ghosts (2021)
- Hell's Kitchen (2005)
- Veep (2012)
- Comedy Bang! Bang! (2012)
- The Conners (2018)
- Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head (2022)
- Desus & Mero (2019)
- Vladimir (2026)
- Carol & the End of the World (2023)
- Outsourced (2010)
- No Activity (2017)
- Manhunt (2024)
- Nailed It! (2018)
- Human Giant (2007)
- Animal Practice (2012)
- Weird City (2019)
- Do You Want to See a Dead Body? (2017)
Where to start with Matt Walsh
Veep is the whole case for Walsh and nothing else here comes close. Mike is the most consistently pathetic character in a show made entirely of pathetic characters, and Walsh plays him without a shred of vanity or a single bid for sympathy.
After that, the films are a pick-and-mix. Bad Santa and Step Brothers are the early ones where you notice him without knowing his name. The Hangover and Role Models are the peak of the two-scene era.
The two to seek out deliberately are Brigsby Bear, a very odd and very sweet film that needs an actor who can stay deadpan through it, and Widows, where he is asked to be plausible rather than funny. Into the Storm is the closest he has come to an action lead.
Veep and television
Mike McLintock is the acting peak, a press secretary who is bad at his job in a specific and endlessly renewable way, and the show never once makes him a villain. The recent television is steady character work.
The studio comedies
Two decades of one and two-scene parts in American comedy, generally as an authority figure with no actual authority. Bad Santa and Old School are the earliest, and he is often the funniest thing in a bad film.
The dramatic and independent work
Where he gets more than a scene. Brigsby Bear is the best film here and gives him a genuinely tender supporting part, and Other People and Suncoast are the small serious ones that people have not seen.