Tim Meadows
Tim Meadows is an actor, born 1961.
Tim Meadows was born in Highland Park, Michigan in 1961 and spent ten seasons on Saturday Night Live, from 1991 to 2000, making him one of the longest-serving cast members in the show's history. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series in 1993, and in 2000 he headlined The Ladies Man as Leon Phelps.
His comic technique is unusual and consistent: he is the calmest person in a loud scene. Where the rest of the cast escalates, he slows down, and the laugh comes from the refusal to match anyone's energy. Principal Duvall in Mean Girls is built entirely on that tempo, delivering every line at roughly half the speed of the teenagers around him, which is why the role survived long enough for him to reprise it in Mean Girls 2 and again in the 2024 musical adaptation.
He has been a fixture of broad studio comedy ever since: Walk Hard, Semi-Pro, The Benchwarmers, Grown Ups and Grown Ups 2, Jack and Jill, Popstar, Trainwreck and Hubie Halloween. Television has treated him better. He played Mr. Glascott through six seasons of The Goldbergs and then as a lead on its spin-off Schooled, was one of the best things in Detroiters, and has done sharp guest and supporting work in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Peacemaker, Space Force and Bob's Burgers. Dream Scenario in 2023 gave him a straighter, sadder register and he was excellent in it.
Movies (33)
- Grown Ups (2010)
- Grown Ups 2 (2013)
- Mean Girls (2004)
- Mean Girls (2024)
- Dream Scenario (2023)
- Mean Girls 2 (2011)
- Aliens in the Attic (2009)
- Trainwreck (2015)
- Jack and Jill (2011)
- Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
- The Benchwarmers (2006)
- Semi-Pro (2008)
- Wayne's World 2 (1993)
- Hubie Halloween (2020)
- Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
- Our Little Secret (2024)
- GravyTrain (2010)
- Will & Harper (2024)
- The Cookout (2004)
- Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniversary Special (1999)
- Saturday Night Live: A Tribute to Chris Farley (1998)
- Nobody Knows Anything! (2004)
- The Even Stevens Movie (2003)
- It's a Wonderful Binge (2022)
- The Ladies Man (2000)
- Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999)
- Saturday Night Live: The Best of Phil Hartman (1998)
- Feeding America Comedy Festival (2020)
- The Women of SNL (2010)
- It's Pat (1994)
TV (34)
- The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005)
- Bob's Burgers (2011)
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013)
- Saturday Night Live (1975)
- The Colbert Report (2005)
- The Goldbergs (2013)
- Peacemaker (2022)
- The New Adventures of Old Christine (2006)
- Miracle Workers (2019)
- Man with a Plan (2016)
- Space Force (2020)
- Bless the Harts (2019)
- No Activity (2017)
- Hollywood Squares (2025)
- Grimsburg (2024)
- Digman! (2023)
- Living with Fran (2005)
- Ask the Storybots (2016)
- DMV (2025)
- Nudes in the News (2002)
- Marry Me (2014)
- Glory Daze (2010)
- Schooled (2019)
- Ultra City Smiths (2021)
- The Michael Richards Show (2000)
- Dinner at Tiffani's (2015)
- Detroiters (2017)
- Help Me Help You (2006)
- Talkshow with Spike Feresten (2006)
- The Spoils Before Dying (2015)
Where to start with Tim Meadows
Everyone starts at Mean Girls, where Principal Duvall is a masterpiece of tempo: he says the joke at half the speed of everyone else in the room and takes the scene.
The Ladies Man is the closest thing to a starring vehicle, exactly as broad as it sounds, and Leon Phelps is a committed piece of character work regardless. Detroiters is the best modern showcase and badly under-seen. Dream Scenario hands him a straighter, sadder part and he is the best supporting performance in it.
For guest work, Peacemaker and Brooklyn Nine-Nine are the sharpest. The Goldbergs built Mr. Glascott into a real character across six seasons before Schooled gave him the school outright.
The films
Principal Duvall is the role, and he played it again twenty years later in the musical version. Popstar and Walk Hard are the two best comedies on this list, and The Ladies Man is the Saturday Night Live character film.
The television work
Steady sitcom work since leaving Saturday Night Live. The Goldbergs gave him a role that ran long enough to earn its own spin-off, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine uses him for the funniest sort of bureaucratic obstruction.
The Sandler films and the recent work
A long association with the Adam Sandler company, which is a reliable living rather than a body of work. Dream Scenario is the recent outlier and the closest he has come to a straight dramatic part.