Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Mintz-Plasse at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con International
Born	(1989-06-20) June 20, 1989 Woodland Hills, California
Occupation	Actor, comedian
Years active	2007–present

Christopher Mintz-Plasse (born June 20, 1989)^[1] is an American actor who has performed roles such as Fogell (better known as "McLovin") in Superbad, Augie Farcques in Role Models, and as Chris D'Amico in Kick-Ass and its sequel Kick-Ass 2.

Early life

Mintz-Plasse was born and raised in Woodland Hills, California, where he attended El Camino Real High School, performing on its improv comedy team.^[1] His mother was a school counselor and his father a postal worker.^[1]

Career

When auditioning for the part of Fogell (aka "McLovin") in his film debut Superbad, he had no professional head shots and instead took one with his camera phone.^[2] Because he was 17 at the time and still a minor, his mother was required by law to be on set while he filmed his sex scene in the movie.^[1] Upon release, the film earned critical and commercial success, with many critics citing Mintz-Plasse's performance as a highlight; he received a nomination for the MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance.^[3][4]

In 2008, Mintz-Plasse next appeared with Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott in David Wain's film Role Models as Augie Farques, a nerdy teenager obsessed with medieval live-action role-playing games. He also made a small guest appearance on an episode of David Wain's internet series, Wainy Days. He then starred in Harold Ramis's film Year One, as a comedic version of the biblical figure Isaac. He also appeared in a short film titled The Tale of RJ which ended up becoming the basis for the television series The Hard Times of RJ Berger.^[5]

The next year he voiced Fishlegs in the animated film How to Train Your Dragon. In April 2010, he appeared in Kick-Ass as the superhero Red Mist, a.k.a. Chris D'Amico, which was planned to be a minor role until director Matthew Vaughn saw Mintz-Plasse audition and saw what he was capable of doing. Mintz-Plasse originally auditioned for the role of Kick-Ass, but when the producers believed that his acting was too loud and obnoxious they immediately gave him the role of Red Mist instead.^[6][7] In May 2010, he guest-starred in an episode of Party Down as Kent, a friend of the character Roman. He performed his second voice-over that month in the film Marmaduke, as the stylized dog Giuseppe. The same year he was featured in two music videos, Kid Cudi's Erase Me, featuring Kanye West, and the indie rock band The Soft Pack's Answer to Yourself.^[8][9]

Mintz-Plasse at the Deauville Film Festival in 2011.

In 2011, Mintz-Plasse appeared in the remake of the 1985 film Fright Night as Evil Ed, who is the former best friend of Charley Brewster, played by Anton Yelchin.^[10] At first he was reluctant to accept the role as it was a remake, but he accepted after reading the script and seeing the talent involved.^[11]

Mintz-Plasse and Dave Franco on the "It's All Possible" road trip in September 2013

In 2012, he voiced the bullying student Alvin in the stop motion animated film, ParaNorman.^[12] The same year he also had a small role in the film Pitch Perfect as Tommy, the university's audition launcher. He then starred in a short film titled Would You, which was written by his Fright Night co-star Dave Franco and premiered at the SXSW Film Festival.^[13][14] Mintz-Plasse was supposed to play the lead role in the CBS sitcom Friend Me and even filmed several episodes, but before the series could air, it was cancelled after series creator Alan Kirschenbaum tragically took his own life.^[15] As a promotion for the video game Far Cry 3, he starred in a series of online videos called The Far Cry Experience, as a fictional version of himself trapped on an island controlled by a psychotic pirate named Vaas.^[16] He is currently reprising his role of Fishlegs in the DreamWorks Dragons television series, which aired on Cartoon Network.

He reprised his role of Chris D'Amico in the sequel Kick-Ass 2, which was released in August 2013.^[12] Mintz-Plasse found the role to be darker than any other he had portrayed to date, and hired an acting coach to help him with the more intense scenes.^[17] He made his third music video appearance in the Unknown Mortal Orchestra's music video So Good At Being In Trouble.^[18]

He and his Kick-Ass co-star Chloë Grace Moretz starred in a short segment in the film Movie 43 titled Middle School Date. He also had small roles in Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's This Is the End, playing a fictional version of himself, and in the romantic comedy film The To Do List, with Aubrey Plaza.^[19][20]

In September 2013, Mintz-Plasse and Dave Franco set out on a week-long road trip across America to promote LG's "It's All Possible" campaign for the electronics company's new flagship smartphone, the LG G2. The actors documented their process and broadcast it on Funny or Die.^[21] Mintz-Plasse had a supporting role as college fraternity student Scoonie in the 2014 hit comedy film Neighbors and reprised his role as Fishlegs in the animated sequel How to Train Your Dragon 2.^[22][23]

In 2015, he starred in the music video of Alison Wonderland's U Don't Know.

Mintz-Plasse plays drums for the rock band The Young Rapscallions.^[24]

Filmography

Film

Television

Discography

Music videos

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

• Christopher Mintz-Plasse at the Internet Movie Database
• Florino, Rick (April 8, 2010). "Interview: Kick-Ass Star Christopher Mintz-Plasse — "When I play drums, I'm the most free"". ArtistDirect.com. Archived from the original on October 25, 2012. Retrieved October 7, 2016. 
• Abele, Robert (November 6, 2008). "Christopher Mintz-Plasse is everywhere". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on September 25, 2008. Retrieved November 8, 2008.