Christopher William D’Elia is mostly famous for his roles in TV series The Good Doctor on the ABC television (Kenny), the NBC sitcom Whitney (where he played Alex Miller), Undateable (Danny Burton), and Alone Together.
One of his upcoming roles will be a role of Henderson in You, a thriller Netflix series.
Yet, he has numerous talents besides acting, as he is a stand-up comedian, writer, and podcast host as well.
Chris was born in a family with entertainment history, which explains a lot, but we will talk about that in detail in the following paragraphs.
Early Years
Christopher William D’Elia was born in Montclair, New Jersey, on March 29 in 1980.
His parents are Bill D’Elia and Ellie D’Elia (Dombroski), an interior decorator.
Growing up in Montclair was generally fun to Chris, as he believes it was a great place to grow up.
Does Bill D’Elia sound familiar? Of course, as he is a famous TV producer, director, and actor, who is a first-generation Italian-American as well. He was particularly active during the 1990s, even though he still works and creates.
Bill produced and directed movie The Feud in 1989 when he officially launched his career.
He was a graduate from Ithaca College and William Paterson University, where he achieved a master’s degree in communication arts in 1972.
What is more, Bill was nominated for Emmy Awards eight times – either as a director or an executive producer.
Some of his projects include The Practice, Northern Exposure, Chicago Hope, The West Wing, Ally McBeal, and Boston Legal.
Bill and Ellie have 2 sons, of which Chris is the older one.
Both their sons followed Bill’s footsteps and made a great career.
His brother, Matt D’Elia, is an actor, and filmmaker who became famous after the appearance in the American Animal.
This means we have a family related to entertainment, which was a big stimulus for Chris as well.
The family moved to Los Angeles, California, when Chris was 12 years old.
He was excited about moving to Los Angeles, as he watched shows like Beverly Hills 90210, which made the city seem familiar.
Chris participated in the production of plays while attending La Cañada High School in California.
During this time, he landed his first guest-starring parts in Chicago Hope, the TV series.
After graduation in 1998, Chris D’Elia proceeded to New York University where he studied acting.
However, after he spent one year in the institution, Chris got dropped because he didn’t like the college.
Career Development
Just as we mentioned above, Chris’s acting career starts while he was in high school, and his first appearance on TV was in Chicago Hope.
He went through a downtime as an actor, but he didn’t let it discourage him. Chris was writing scripts in the meantime.
Then, at the age of 25, Chris decided to give chance to standup comedy, as this was his childhood dream.
There is a story about when Bill, Chris’s dad noticed that he likes comedy.
They were watching Jerry Lewis, and youngster Chris asked his dad if comedy was actually Jerry’s occupation.
He also asked if Lewis made money doing that, and when Bill answered yes, Chris made up his mind to be a comedian.
Chris does stand-up comedy from 2006, and he achieved fame through it.
He likes to describe himself as a stand-up comedian who does acting.
Speaking of his comedy routine and style, Chris says it is animated and style aggressive.
Actually, a joke about drunk girls put Chris in theaters and went viral. What is more, it is viral even today.
When they asked him where his heart as if he had to make a choice between acting and stand-up comedy, Chris answered comedy feels like something related to his essence.
He also said that he had always felt like a comedian and that being a stand-up comedian is the coolest job on the earth.
Chris remembers his first set at the Ha Ha Café in North Hollywood where he did open mics, and he got the opportunity to do his own show only a few months later.
Looking back, Chris has done 430 shows last year, which is much more than with some people who are doing stand-up for 10 years.
His appearance on Comedy Central Presents, Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham, and Showtime’s Live Nude Comedy brought him many fans and opened Chris to a new audience.
However, the series Glory Daze from TBS introduced him to the right public. Chris was the cast for the pilot, but this cooperation turned into a series.
Bryan Callen, Will Sasso, and Chris D’Elia were hosts of the Ten Minute Podcast, which ran from 2012 to 2015.
Congratulations with Chris D’Elia was a weekly podcast Chris was working on since February 2017. This podcast was one of the top 20 comedy podcasts in multiple countries at that time.
Listeners and fans of this podcast named themselves “Babies”, while Chris jokingly says for his fans they are his cult.
Speaking of Congratulations with Chris D’Elia, neither Chris was expecting huge success. Still, it took off quickly and brought him more audience.
Chris’s style influenced other podcasts, such as The Fighter and the Kid. This podcast was hosted by Chris’s friend and colleague, Bryan Callen, and Brendan Schaub, former MMA fighter.
D’Elia surprised the audience when he released his debut parody rap album in 2013.
His rap name is Chank Smith, while the name of the album is Such Is Life. Mr. Green produced it.
Chris filmed White Male Black Comic, his first one-hour stand-up special in 2013 as well. His father, Bill, directed it.
Working with Bill seems awesome to Chris, and there are no pitfalls on this matter.
Bill knows Chris’s act better than anyone and no one can give him better advice about stuff he is filming.
Even though Bill has a bit different ideas than Chris does, Chris believes what Bill suggests makes everything much better.
He was cast in the lead role of Undateable from 2014, the NBC multi-camera sitcom with a live audience.
Bill Lawrence was an executive producer who based the story of this sitcom on the book Undateable: 33 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won’t Be Dating or Having Sex, written by Anne Coyle and Ellen Rakieten.
The show included a lot of improvement, while Chris handled it as a master.
Chris was working with Bill Lawrence in 2015 again. The cast, in which was Chris, Rick Glassman, Ron Funcher, and Brent Morin, had a couple of stand-up tour dates, whose goal was to promote the show.
The Good Doctors is the ABC drama, in which Chris plays a supporting role as the neighbor of the autistic young surgeon. He, as a neighbor, takes advantage of the doctor’s inability to understand social matters.
This role was something completely different from anything Chris filmed until then, and he loved it.
His tour in Chicago – the Leafly 420 Comedy Tour Show, gained a lot of success, and his special guest was the above-mentioned Ron Funches.
Chris has been crisscrossing the country since 2018, heading into 2019, as he is doing his stand-up tours.
He copes with being away from his family and friends mostly because he is interacting with thousands of people, which keeps him busy all the time.
Chris announced in March this year he would appear in the Next thriller series You as the recurring role of Henderson.
D’Elia is active on social media as well. Lately, he has been impersonating Eminem, which caught his attention after some time.
In fact, the impersonation was so fantastic that even Eminem couldn’t realize that wasn’t him but Chris.
Eminem shared this video on his Twitter account, claiming he actually thought it was him in the video. Chris has more than 2 million followers on Vine as well.
He has 1.6 million followers on Instagram, while his Facebook page counts more than 300,000 likes.
Chris is active on Snapchat as well. He believes that short format apps now can bring him closer to the audience, claiming that huge part of his public is getting involved with this app, and many other, and it would be a pity for him not to get involved too.
Speaking of Chris’s filmography, Chris’s first movie was Almost from 2004, followed by Crazylove and Bad Girls From Valley High (2005), Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012), Funny: The Documentary (2013), Flock of Dudes (2015), XOXO (2016), Little Devil, The Female Brain, and Band Aid (2017), and Life in a Year and Half Magic (2018).
The list of his TV shows includes: Comedians of the World and You (2019), Alone Together and The Good Doctor (2017-2018), The Great Indoors and Man on Fire (2017), Rush Hour, Typically Rick, and Lip Sync Battle (2016), Incorrigible (2015), Undateable (2014-2015), Jennifer Falls (2014), Sanjay and Craig (2013-2016), White Male, Black Comic (2013), Sullivan and Son (2012), Whitney (2011-2013), and Workaholics (2011).
Lip Sync Battle, from a director Christopher Louie, follows an interesting story of a guy in his 20s who would like to get to an EDM festival.
Chris is acting a guy in his 30s who gets the bus to take all these 20-somethings to the festival.
They eventually split up when they get there, and then have to meet back together at some point.
Personal Life
Chris was married once. His ex-wife, Emily Montague and Chris got married in 2006, yet, divorced in 2010. They were together for 2 years before getting married.
Some of his fans can’t still get over the fact they are not coming back together, as they were absolutely adorable.
The couple decided not to talk much about their separation and settled everything down in peace.
Chris talked about having kids with Emily in one of his interviews. However, he said he would be open to everything that is coming his way, as things always happen for a reason.
After the divorce, Emily met Damon Dayoub, whom she married in 2015. They have a daughter, Ava James Dayoub, born in December 2017.
Seems like the divorce left a bitter taste in Chris’s mouth, as he was Tweeting and posting statuses on Facebook about unfriending people who got married.
His resentment became so obvious even though 9 years passed after he came through separation like he wouldn’t want to get married anytime again.
His despise towards marriage seem to has grown exponentially after hearing Emily married another man.
He was trying to establish a connection with a new person in his life. Yet, the fact this all was happening around the time when Emily was getting married the second time, says a lot.
Chris decided to give a try to a relationship with Whitney Cummings, his co-star.
This couple clicked together after filming “Whitney”, but some sources claim they were never in a relationship.
Chris is trying his best to keep things about his private life well hidden, even though there hasn’t been so much in his love life lately.
D’Elia bought a mansion in Beverly Hills in December 2018.
It has 5,458 square feet and cost $5.4 million after renovating.
Yet, the news came recently that Chris put his mansion for sale.
Quick Summary
Full Name: Christopher William D’Elia
Date of Birth: March 29, 1980
Birthplace: Montclair, New Jersey
Age: 39
Profession: Actor, stand-up comedian, writer, podcast host
Height: 1,89m
Weight: 79kg
Net Worth: $16 million
