Background and career
Brendan Hunt is an American actor and writer best known as a writer and a main cast member for the Apple TV series Ted Lasso. He also has played roles in the films We're the Millers (2013) and Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) as well as voicing two characters in the video game Fallout 4 (2015). From 1998 to 2008, he was a writer and performer with the Amsterdam-based comedy and improvisational troupe Boom Chicago.
In 1996, Hunt completed the theater program at Illinois State University. While there, he performed at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival and completed a week-long master class under the guidance of actress Judith Ivey.
After getting his theater degree, Hunt studied with The Second City in Chicago before heading to Amsterdam and joining the Boom Chicago comedy troupe.
From 1998 to 2008, Hunt was a regular writer and performer with the Boom Chicago comedy and improvisational troupe. Hunt was the head writer and featured in the Comedy Central (Netherlands) satirical news program Comedy Central News (CCN) that was produced by Boom Chicago. While with the group, Hunt performed alongside Jason Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses, We're the Millers, Saturday Night Live), Jordan Peele (Key and Peele) and Seth Meyers (Late Night with Seth Meyers, Saturday Night Live). While Boom Chicago was based in Amsterdam, they embarked on a "comedy exchange" with The Second City performing at their Chicago, Illinois theater in 2003. The Chicago Tribune noted Hunt's performance as soccer star Roy Keane, calling it the "best character of the night." While with Boom, Hunt co-wrote and co-starred in a pair of two-man shows at Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Iconic Yanks with Meyers and Here Comes the Neighborhood with Peele.
After returning to the United States, Hunt developed a one-man show based on his time in the Netherlands called Five Years in Amsterdam. In the performance, Hunt takes a comedic and touching look back at five years living in Europe as an American. Among topics examined are relationships, drug excesses, experiences at a fetish club and his feelings about the Match of the Day anthem and Alan Hansen. He also recounts a rough childhood with "an absent father" and an alcoholic mother. In its review, The Stage said of the show, "each drop of comedy gold is lovingly extracted in a superbly crafted, unflinchingly honest and enormously enjoyable whole" and called it a "must see" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Hunt performed the play at the 2007 edition of The Comedy Festival in Aspen, Colorado. and also took the show on the road to The Second City in Chicago, Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City and iO West in Los Angeles.
In 2007, Hunt joined the Sacred Fools Theater Company. Hunt's time at Sacred Fools included a turn as the lead in the musical Savin' Up for Saturday Night that proved to be an Ovation Awards-winning role. Hunt won Lead Actor in a Musical at the 2010 Ovation Awards.
