- Born
- Height5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
- Irish comedian Dylan Moran was born in Navan, County Meath in 1971. Leaving school without any qualifications at age 16, Moran quickly became attracted to stand-up comedy and debuted, in 1992, at a comedy club in Dublin, The Comedy Cellar. A year later, he won the Channel Four comedy newcomer's "So You Think You're Funny" award at the Edinburgh Festival, and began developing his comedy routines into a one-man show, "Gurgling for Money", for which he won the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award in 1996, and which he subsequently took to a nationwide tour of the UK. His exposure at the Edinburgh Festival also led to him getting programmed at international stand-up comedy festivals, worldwide.
Subsequently, Moran took to writing and performing for British television. He has starred in the BBC sitcom, How Do You Want Me? (1998), and - more importantly - in 2000, he was commissioned by Channel Four for the sitcom, Black Books (2000). He wrote and starred in three 6-episode series of this comedy. Co-starring popular British stand-up comedian Bill Bailey, who was nominated for the Perrier Award the year Moran won, Black Books (2000) sees Moran play a character close to his stand-up comedy persona: an unsociable misanthrope, reminiscent of the John Cleese sitcom character, "Basil Fawlty", that shares a great love of wine with one of razor-sharp put-downs of all things human. Also, his character Bernard Black's often surreal views on everyday things and on human behavior is close to his stand-up persona's dealing with them.
The same year the first series of "Black Books" aired, Moran took his one-man show, "Ready, Steady, Cough", on a UK tour, followed two years later by Dylan Moran: Monster (2004). This was followed by Monster II in 2004.
In the late 1990's, Moran also moved from doing stand-up to working on a film acting CV. He played opposite Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in Notting Hill (1999), co-starred with Michael Caine in The Actors (2003) and had parts in the Simon Pegg comedy, Shaun of the Dead (2004) and the Michael Winterbottom film, Tristram Shandy (2005).
Moran's live stand-up comedy is unique in that it merges two strands of stand-up that seemed incompatible for a long time: sharp observational humor, and surreal and fantastical language-based absurdity. On the one hand, he has a clear influence from what could be called an American school of stand-up comedy that is heavily observational. On the other hand, Moran's comedy is characterized by a use of language similar to the stand-up comedy of Eddie Izzard and Ross Noble: surreal associative leaps between on the one side observations and on the other fantasies, verbally painting bizarre and absurd worlds, often through a use of stream-of-consciousness narration. His language is often highly poetic, resembling a James Joyce that has had one too many.
Moran is very reluctant to give interviews on his personal life and even on his career, a fact parodied in a staged interview inter-cut with the recording of his live stand-up show, "Monster", on its DVD release.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Teun van der Sluijs
- SpouseElaine(September 6, 1997 - present) (2 children)
- Tousle-haired, world-weary Irishman with ever-present cigarette and glass of wine.
- Striking resemblance to Harry Potter. (If you struck Harry Potter, that's how he'd end up looking.)
- Dylan was personally recommended to Simon Pegg for the role of "David" in Shaun of the Dead (2004) by producer Nira Park (who also produced Dylan's show, Black Books (2000) and Simon's show, Spaced (1999)). Pegg claimed he wasn't sure Moran was right for the part at first, but he saw Dylan's audition tape and he "nailed it". (Dylan, himself, wasn't intially sure he was right for the part, either, and actually suggested they cast comedian David Walliams, instead).
- Got married in London on the day of Princess Diana's funeral, in a church just around the corner.
- Called the Perrier Award (which he won in 1996) "a load of media rubbish". He thought fellow comedian (and future Black Books (2000) co-star) Bill Bailey should have won it.
- The Second youngest person to win the Perrier Comedy Award in 1996 at the Edinburgh Festival at age 24.
- Met his future Black Books (2000) co-star, Bill Bailey, many years earlier, on the UK comedy circuit.
- I don't do drugs. If I want a rush I just get out of a chair when I'm not expecting it.
- It's its own bioculture, I just leave it alone... we sleep in separate rooms. (On his hair)
- Yeah, I think Michael has had to deal with that label of being Michael Caine for a long time.
- The trend now is to get away from stage bound sitcoms.
- We are both drawn to surreal situations so the writing was a joy.
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