Rob Delaney facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Rob Delaney
Delaney in 2012
Born	(1977-01-19) January 19, 1977 (age 47) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Comedian actor writer activist
Years active	2003–present
Spouse(s)	Leah Delaney
Children	4

Rob Delaney (born January 19, 1977) is an American comedian, actor, writer, and activist. He was the co-star and co-writer of the TV show Catastrophe, and has appeared in comedy films such as Deadpool 2 (2018) and Tom & Jerry (2021).

Early life

Delaney was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1977, the son of Nancy and Robert Delaney. He grew up in Marblehead, Massachusetts. He is of Irish descent. He attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and graduated with a degree in musical theater in 1999.

Career

Twitter

Delaney came to the attention of the public via Twitter, where he began posting in 2009. By 2016, he had over 1.2 million followers. While other comics were hesitant to share their material on social media, he is considered one of the first comedians to use social media to publish jokes. He credited Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan with his rise in popularity after Linehan began responding to his tweets. In 2010, Paste magazine named Delaney one of the 10 funniest people on Twitter. In May 2012, he became the first comedian to win the award for "Funniest Person on Twitter" at The Comedy Awards.

Writing

Delaney has written articles for Vice and The Guardian. His book Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage. was published by Spiegel & Grau in November 2013. His memoir A Heart That Works, about the loss of his two-and-a-half-year-old son Henry to brain cancer, was published by Spiegel & Grau in 2022.

Acting

Television

Delaney and Sharon Horgan being interviewed about Catastrophe in 2015

In December 2011, Comedy Central announced that Delaney would shoot a pilot for a variety show, called @RobDelaney. However, the series was not picked up. Instead, Delaney moved on to co-write and co-star with Sharon Horgan in Catastrophe, that began airing in the UK on January 19, 2015, on Channel 4. The show follows their characters after they get together following a brief affair while he is in the UK on business, and then moves there permanently after he learns that she has become pregnant. It debuted in the United States on Amazon in June 2015. The program ended after four seasons. Channel 4 aired the concluding episode on February 12, 2019, while Amazon announced the US release date to be March 15 of the same year. The series earned him his sole Emmy nomination, for "Outstanding Comedy Writing".

Since moving to the UK in 2014, Delaney has appeared on several British panel shows, including Have I Got News for You, Would I Lie to You?, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, The Big Fat Quiz of the Year and Room 101. In 2016, he appeared on Travel Man as a guest host for the Spanish city of Seville, and in March 2021, he was the guest announcer on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.

Film

In the film Deadpool 2 (2018), Delaney played Peter, an average middle-aged man who has no superpowers and joins Deadpool's X-Force. As part of the film's promotion, a Twitter account was launched in Peter's name.

Throughout 2019, Delaney had a series of cameos in Hollywood blockbuster films. He reteamed with director David Leitch and actor Dwayne Johnson for Hobbs & Shaw, in which he appeared as Agent Loeb. He appeared as a theater director in Paul Feig's comedy-drama Last Christmas. Both movies went to No. 1 at the UK box office. He also appeared opposite Anne Hathaway in The Hustle as Todd and the Fox News drama Bombshell co-starring Charlize Theron. He filmed a cameo as Elvis Presley in Dexter Fletcher's Elton John musical biopic Rocketman, which was omitted from the theatrical cut. It was also reported that he would appear opposite Reynolds another time, in Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. However, he did not appear in the final film. In September 2019 he was cast in The Good House opposite Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline.

Personal life

Delaney resides in London with his wife Leah; they have had four sons together. In February 2018, Delaney revealed that their son Henry had died in January at the age of two-and-a-half, having received extensive treatment for a brain tumor since 2016. The couple's fourth son was born in August 2018.

In 2018, Delaney became the first presenter on the CBeebies Bed Time Stories programme to tell a story in Makaton, which he used to communicate with his late son Henry.

On Sara Cox's show Between the Covers, Delaney chose the short story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin as one of his favorite books.

Delaney is an atheist.

Political views

In June 2017, as a long-time resident in Britain who cannot vote due to being a non-UK citizen, he endorsed the Labour Party in the 2017 general election. In November 2018, he supported a petition organized by Labour campaign group Momentum calling on Labour MPs to vote against the EU withdrawal agreement which had been negotiated by Theresa May's government.

In November 2019, Delaney joined other public figures in signing a letter supporting Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and endorsed him in the 2019 UK general election. In December 2019, along with 42 other public figures, he signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few".

Filmography

Key

Denotes works that have not yet been released

Film

Year	Work	Role	Notes
2007	Wild Girls Gone
2014	Life After Beth	News Anchor
2018	Deadpool 2	Peter
2019	The Hustle	Todd
	Rocketman	Elvis Presley	Deleted scene
	Hobbs & Shaw	Agent Loeb
	Last Christmas	Theatre Director
	Bombshell	Gil Norman
2021	Tom & Jerry	Henry Dubros
	Wrath of Man	Boss Blake Halls
	The Good House	Peter Newbold
	Ron's Gone Wrong	Andrew Morris	Voice
	Home Sweet Home Alone	Jeff McKenzie
2022	The Bubble	Marti
	The School for Good and Evil	Stefan
2023	Northern Comfort	Ralph
	Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One	JSOC
	Love at First Sight	Andrew Sullivan
2024	Argylle	TBA	Post-production
	Orion and the Dark	Orion's Dad (voice)	In-production
	Deadpool 3	Peter	Filming

Television

Year	Work	Role	Notes
2009	Coma, Period.	Dan Humford	10 episodes
	Outer Space Astronauts	Commander Cake	Episode: "One Year Ago"
2010	This Week in Comedy	Himself	Episode: "Karen Kilgariff/Rob Delaney"
2011	The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest	Himself	6 episodes
2012	Key & Peele	Various	3 episodes
	First Dates with Toby Harris	Brad	Episode: "Ex-Girlfriends"
2013	Rob Delaney Live at the Bowery Ballroom	Himself	Live performance special on Netflix; also executive producer
	... Town	Guide	Episode: "Have Love Will Travel"
	Burning Love	Kirk	3 episodes
2014	The Michael J. Fox Show	Clete Matthews	Episode: "Biking"
2015–2019	Catastrophe	Rob Norris	24 episodes; also co-creator, co-writer, executive producer
2016	Travel Man: 48 Hours In	Himself	Episode: "Seville"
2018	Action Team	Victor	Episode: "Super Mega Robot"
	Trust	Lansing	Episode: "Kodachrome"
	Danger Mouse	Night Knight (voice)	Episode: "Daylight Savings Crime"
	Bitz & Bob	Bevel (voice)	41 episodes
2021	Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway	Guest announcer	2 episodes
	The Great North	Brian Tobin (voice)	2 episodes
	No Activity	Magnolia (voice)	2 episodes
	Birdgirl	Brian O'Brien (voice)	6 episodes
	Between the Covers	Himself	Episode #2.2
	Fairfax	Grant (voice)	4 episodes
2022	Big Nate	Martin Wright (voice)	Main role
	Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway	The Devil	Recurring role in Polterguys
	The Man Who Fell to Earth	Hatch Flood	Main role, 8 episodes
2023	The Power	Tom	Recurring role
	Black Mirror	Mac	Episode: "Joan Is Awful"
	Invincible	Nuolzot / Séance Dog (voice)	Season 2
TBA	Bad Monkey	Christopher	Main role, upcoming series