Paul Dinello

Paul E. Dinello (born November 28, 1962) is an American comedian, actor, and writer, best known for his collaborations with Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris. His accolades include five Primetime Emmy Awards, three PGA Awards, and two WGA Awards.

With Colbert and Sedaris, he co-created for Comedy Central the sketch comedy series Exit 57 (1995–1996) and the dark comedy Strangers with Candy (1999–2000), where he portrayed Geoffrey Jellineck. In 2003, they also wrote the satirical book Wigfield. In 2005, Dinello became a writer and supervising producer for The Colbert Report and then The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In 2017, he co-created the truTV craft-oriented comedy At Home with Amy Sedaris, which ran for three seasons, until it was cancelled in 2021.

Early life

Dinello was born in Oak Park, Illinois to Frank Anthony Dinello, the head of DePaul University's Mental Health Clinic, and Ann Lee Dinello (née Zeiler). He is the fourth of five siblings: Donna, Lori, Linda and David. He has said he had an "average middle class midwestern upbringing". His uncle Dan Dinello, who piqued his interest in directing, is an independent filmmaker and professor emeritus at Columbia College Chicago.

Dinello attended Oak Park River Forest High School and during that time used to get in trouble a lot: "I didn't do things to be mean, I did things to amuse people and they turned out to be rotten", he has said, recalling an incident where he blew up fireworks in the student center. After graduating, he enrolled in DePaul University, where he majored in Communications and English, while also taking film classes. Dinello did not particularly enjoy his major: "I knew that I was learning stuff I didn't have any interest in. It was good I'd say for winnowing out the things that I didn't want to do. It made it abundantly clear that I didn't want to have anything to do with Communications." He graduated from DePaul's College of Communications in 1985. Dinello worked at Allstate for a year, but quit to do stand-up. To support himself he worked as a cabbie and sold newspapers and office art.

Career

Improv education: (1985–1994)

After college, Dinello attended an improv class at The Players Workshop. The first activity required him to close his eyes and find a partner, he was paired with Greg Hollimon. Dinello recalled, "We were told, “Get to know your partner, rub noses.” We were rubbing noses and I open my eyes and it's Greg—you know he's a six-foot-six bald black man. And I was like “Aah I'm quittin.” After that things got better." Along with two other classmates, they later formed an improv group called, The Yardstick Boys, and would often perform around Chicago "for beer money". He had also attended the Improv Institute and Annoyance Theatre.

After seeing a show at The Second City, he decided to take classes there and after a while was asked to audition. In the late 1980s, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company. It was there where he met Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first – Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "a semi-literate thug" – but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility. In 2003, Second City senior associate producer Beth Kligerman called him "the most handsome person to come out of 43 years of Second City." Dinello and Sedaris moved to New York City to star alongside Mitch Rouse and Becky Thyre in Stitches, a play written by Sedaris and her brother David, which premiered at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in 1994.

Exit 57 (1995–1996)

When he and Sedaris were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left The Second City and moved to New York to work with them on the sketch comedy show Exit 57. The series debuted on Comedy Central in 1995 and aired through 1996. Although it lasted for only 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series.

Strangers with Candy (1999–2000)

A few years later, Dinello worked again with Sedaris and Colbert to develop Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998. Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Dinello served as a main writer with Sedaris and Colbert, and portrayed Jerri's naïve and self-centered art teacher, Geoffrey Jellineck, seen throughout the series not actually teaching anything to his classes. Dinello took inspiration for his character from a teacher he used to have in high school. Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. After the show ended, Dinello, Colbert and David Pasquesi penned "Trifecta", a comedy script that was bought by Artisan Entertainment. The film was intended to be directed by Dinello and star Colbert, Pasquesi, Sedaris and himself, but it did not come out of the development stage, as Dinello realized he did not like the script.

Dinello reprised his role of Geoffrey Jellineck for a film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Dinello directed and produced the film as well as co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Colbert.