Chris Hardwick

**Christopher Ryan Hardwick** (born November 23, 1971) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, television host, writer, producer, and podcaster. He hosts *Talking Dead*,[2] an hourly aftershow on AMC affiliated with the network's zombie drama series *The Walking Dead* and *Fear the Walking Dead*, as well as *Talking with Chris Hardwick*, a show in which Hardwick interviews prominent pop culture figures, and *The Wall*, a plinko-inspired gameshow on NBC. From 2013 to 2017, he hosted *@midnight with Chris Hardwick*, a nightly comedy-game show series on Comedy Central. In 2018, Hardwick was accused of emotional and sexual abuse by his ex-girlfriend Chloe Dykstra. [3]

Hardwick originated the role of Stacee Jaxx in *Rock of Ages* during its premiere run in Los Angeles (2005–2006).[*citation needed*] In 2011, he began hosting *Ministry of Laughs*, a BBC AmericaBritcom block, and *Talking Dead*, a live hour talk show on AMC following episodes of *The Walking Dead* and *Fear the Walking Dead*. In 2013, Hardwick hosted *Talking Bad*, a live half-hour talk show on AMC following the final eight episodes of *Breaking Bad*, and in 2016 he started to host *Talking Saul* for *Breaking Bad*'s spin-off, *Better Call Saul*. He is also known for performing with Mike Phirman in Hard 'n Phirm, hosting *Singled Out*, *Wired Science*, *Web Soup*, and as the voice of Otis the Cow in *Back at the Barnyard*, replacing Kevin James.

He also created Nerdist Industries, operator of the Nerdist Podcast Network and home of *The Nerdist Podcast*, which later left the network with Hardwick and was renamed to *ID10T with Chris Hardwick*. His podcast has broadcast 999 episodes as of April 2019.

## Early life

Hardwick was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the son of professional bowler Billy Hardwick (1941–2013) and Sharon Hills (née Facente), a real estate agent in Pasadena, California.[4] His maternal grandfather was Italian American, and opened a bowling alley where Hardwick's parents first met.[5] Hardwick was raised in his mother's Roman Catholic faith.[6] At age 4, he met the then-struggling comedian and television personality Joan Rivers and became lifelong friends with her.[7] Hardwick grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was the 1983 Memphis City Junior High Chess champion.[8] He later attended St. Benedict at Auburndale high school, and later moved to Regis Jesuit High School in Colorado and spent his senior year at Loyola High School in Los Angeles.[9]

Hardwick studied philosophy at UCLA, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity during his freshman year and graduated in 1993.[9] He was roommates with Wil Wheaton for some time.[10][11] They met at a showing of *Arachnophobia* in Burbank, California.[10]

## Career

Hardwick was a DJ on Los Angeles radio station KROQ-FM during the mid-1990s.[9] In the fall of 1998, he starred in the UPN comedy *Guys Like Us*; the show aired 12 episodes before it was cancelled in January 1999.[12]

Hardwick appeared in Rob Zombie's horror films *House of 1000 Corpses* and *Halloween II*.[9] He also made a small appearance in *Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines*.[12] In 2010, he was featured in the film *The Mother of Invention*. He made guest appearances on such shows as *CSI: Crime Scene Investigation*, *Married... with Children*,[9] *Boy Meets World*[9] and *Zoey 101*, and was a guest commentator on VH1's *I Love the '90s*, which aired in 2005.[9] He appeared as a television host on hip hop group Little Brother's 2005 album, *The Minstrel Show*.[13]

Hardwick is a contributing writer for *Wired* (since 2007), wrote for *Web Soup* and *Back at the Barnyard*,[9] and he made regular appearances on *The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson* and *Chelsea Lately*. As part of what Hardwick calls his "nerd media empire", he runs Nerdist Theater, an entertainment space at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles.[14][15][16] He entered into an equity partnership with GeekChicDaily in June 2011[17] to form Nerdist Industries.[18]

Hardwick published a self-help book, *The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life)*, with Penguin Publishing, in late 2011. In February 2012, GeekChicDaily fully merged with Nerdist Industries and became Nerdist News, with Hardwick operating as Chief Creative Officer.[19]

On July 10, 2012, Nerdist Industries was acquired by Legendary Entertainment. Hardwick was given the title of co-president of Legendary's digital business.[20]

In February 2018, Hardwick announced that he would be rebranding *The Nerdist Podcast* to *ID10T* and that he would be leaving Nerdist since the contract with Legendary came to an end in 2017.[21]

### Voice-over work[edit]

Hardwick voiced Alexander Hamilton in *The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd* and Otis in the *Barnyard* series (the character was originally voiced by actor Kevin James in the movie *Barnyard: The Original Party Animals*).

He provided the voice for Green Arrow/Oliver Queen on *The Batman* and *Lego Dimensions*, Glowface in *The X's*, and Sokka in *The Legend of Korra*,[22] as well as voice work for *The Minstrel Show* from the rap group Little Brother, and narration for the introduction video for the Flash animation game *George Plimpton's Video Falconry*. Between May 2013 and July 2016, he voiced "Craig the Snake" on *Sanjay and Craig*. He also voiced the character Vaughn in Telltale Games's *Tales from the Borderlands*,[12] reprising his role in the *Borderlands 2* DLC *Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary* and in *Borderlands 3*.

In 2017, Hardwick guest voiced as the villain, Klaxxon, for the special podcast episode of *Futurama* released on the Nerdist podcast.

### Hosting[edit]

Chris Hardwick, at left, emceeing the Legendary Comics panel at the 2012 New York Comic Con. Beside him from left to right: Bob Schreck, Matt Wagner, Grant Morrison, Guillermo del Toro and Travis Beacham.

In 1993, Hardwick hosted the MTV game show *Trashed*, in which contestants would answer trivia questions or risk some of their belongings being destroyed.[23] From 1995 to 1998, he co-hosted with Jenny McCarthy the MTV dating game show *Singled Out*,[24] in which the main contestant selects from a pool of 50 people based on their attributes without seeing them. While working on *Singled Out*, he met fellow MTV personality Jacinda Barrett, to whom he became engaged but never married. Later, he hosted the syndicated dating show *Shipmates*.

From October through December 2007, Hardwick hosted the weekly series *Wired Science* on PBS, while writing for *Wired* magazine. On June 7, 2009, he became the host of G4's *Web Soup*, a spinoff of E!'s *The Soup*. Hardwick had previously guest hosted *The Soup*'s predecessor, *Talk Soup*.

Since February 2010, Hardwick has been producing the "Nerdist" podcast, which he hosts with Jonah Ray and Matt Mira.[25] The podcast was named one of 2010's best by *The A.V. Club*[26] and one of the 10 best comedy podcasts by *Rolling Stone*.[27]

In May 2011, Hardwick signed a contract with BBC America to host a pilot of a panel talk show for the network based on the podcast. The pilot also included Hardwick doing intros and outros for BBC America's new Saturday-night *Ministry of Laughs* comedy block of Britcoms.[28]

In 2011, Hardwick began hosting *Talking Dead*, a live half-hour (later expanded to one hour) aftershow to AMC's series *The Walking Dead*. Hardwick interviews celebrity fans of *The Walking Dead* as well as members of its cast and crew, interacts with the studio audience, re-airs clips of the episode, plays games with and polls the viewers via the Internet, and offers exclusive clips of the next episode. In August 2013, Hardwick began hosting *Talking Bad*, a live half-hour (later expanded to one hour on the final episode) talk show companion series to the final eight episodes of the AMC series *Breaking Bad*.[*citation needed*] In February 2016, Hardwick began hosting *Talking Saul*, a live one-hour talk show companion series to the season two premiere and finale of the AMC series *Better Call Saul*.

On December 24, 2011, BBC America aired *The Nerdist: The Year in Review*, a comedy special hosted by Hardwick in Los Angeles. In August 2012, he hosted a special episode of *The Nerdist* on BBC America to "debate" the effects of time and space with other friends and celebrity nerds. The episode was really an effort to promote the network's upcoming September 1 seventh-season premiere of the series *Doctor Who*.[*citation needed*]

On April 30, 2013, Comedy Central announced that Hardwick would host a half-hour comedic panel show called *@midnight with Chris Hardwick*. Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, formerly of *Reno 911!*, served as executive producers/showrunners.[29] It premiered on October 21, 2013.

On November 7, 2014, he hosted the "Talent, Art, Movie and Costume" section of the BlizzCon gaming convention.

### Stand-up comedy

Hardwick in July 2011

Hardwick is also a stand-up comedian and performs with Mike Phirman in the music comedy duo Hard 'n Phirm, whose half-hour comedy special *Comedy Central Presents: Hard 'n Phirm* premiered in January 2008.[30]

In 2004, Comedy Central used some of his material for an animated series called *Shorties Watchin' Shorties*.[31] In 2007, both his solo standup and duo act were featured on the comedy compilation CD *Comedy Death Ray*. Hard 'n Phirm completed several songs for the 2009 Rob Zombie animated movie *The Haunted World of El Superbeasto*. Hardwick announced plans to do a live stand-up album from his 2009 tour.[*citation needed*] He has toured as a featured comedian for Joel McHale. In 2010, he appeared as a stand-up comic on *John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show* twice.[32][33] In the same year, Hardwick performed on the Comedy Central show *The Benson Interruption*.[12]

On February 17, 2012, Hardwick filmed *Mandroid*, his first one-hour stand-up special for Comedy Central in New York City. Jonah Ray was his unaired opener.[34] The special aired on Comedy Central on November 10, 2012 and was well received.[35] Extended and uncensored DVD, CD, and digital versions were released January 22, 2013