Rise to Fame
A 42-ton cement truck hit him at 11, and he spent two years relearning to walk. During recovery, he started calling radio stations doing celebrity impressions; when he got back to school, the same instinct helped deflect bullies. He linked up with Blake Anderson, Anders Holm, and Kyle Newacheck, posted sketch videos online under Mail Order Comedy, and Comedy Central turned those videos into Workaholics in 2011. The show ran seven seasons, which is absurd for what started as a YouTube channel.
In the Spotlight
The Righteous Gemstones on HBO turned out to be the showcase Workaholics never quite was. He played Kelvin Gemstone for four seasons through 2025, doing a very specific kind of religious-influencer hysteria, and the show's final season gave Kelvin a coming-out arc that became the emotional center of the whole run. The fanbase had been reading that subtext since the first episode, and they weren't wrong.
Side Notes
His turn as Bumper Allen in Pitch Perfect won him a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Villain, which tracks for a guy playing a self-serious a cappella antagonist. He did a stand-up Netflix special in 2019, though the comedy that actually works for him tends to come from bouncing off people. The Kelvin character in Gemstones was reportedly inspired by real televangelists, which is why some viewers couldn't tell it was satire.