Joel McHale

Joel Edward McHale is an American actor, comedian, and television presenter. He is best known for hosting the E! satirical television show The Soup from 2004 to 2015 and starring as Jeffrey "Jeff" Winger on the NBC comedy series Community from 2009 to 2015.

McHale was born in Rome, Italy, on November 20, 1971, to Jack McHale, an American dean of students at Loyola University Chicago's Rome Center, and Laurie McHale, a Canadian native of Vancouver. Raised Catholic, he grew up primarily on Mercer Island, Washington, and briefly lived in Haddonfield, New Jersey. He attended Mercer Island High School and earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Washington in 1995. While in college, he was recruited for the rowing team and later joined the football team as a walk-on tight end, belonging to the squad that played in the 1993 Rose Bowl. He subsequently earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Professional Actors Training Program at the University of Washington.

Early in his career in Seattle, McHale performed with the local sketch comedy show Almost Live! and was a member of Unexpected Productions' improv comedy group from 1993 to 1997. After completing his graduate studies, he relocated to Los Angeles and secured small television roles in series such as Diagnosis: Murder, CSI: Miami, Will & Grace, and Pushing Daisies. He also appeared as a bank manager in the 2004 feature film Spider-Man 2 and played a television reporter in Lords of Dogtown.

In 2004, McHale landed his breakthrough position as the host of E!'s weekly satirical pop-culture program The Soup. Concurrently, he earned wide recognition for starring in the ensemble sitcom Community beginning in 2009. McHale later starred in the CBS sitcom The Great Indoors from 2016 to 2017 and portrayed the superhero Sylvester Pemberton, also known as Starman, in the series Stargirl from 2020 to 2022.

McHale has hosted a variety of television series and public events, including the 2014 White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner, the 2018 Netflix series The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale, the ABC game show revival Card Sharks from 2019 to 2021, and the programs Crime Scene Kitchen, House of Villains, and the American version of The 1% Club. He also co-hosted the podcast The Darkest Timeline with Ken Jeong, hosted a 2020 Tiger King aftershow special, and voiced Johnny Cage in the direct-to-video films Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge and Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms.

McHale's additional film work includes Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, Ted, Deliver Us from Evil, and The Happytime Murders. More recently, he has taken on a lead role in the Fox series Animal Control and a recurring role on the series The Bear. In his personal life, McHale married Sarah Williams in July 1996, and they reside in Los Angeles with their two sons.