Comedian Zach Galifianakis has transformed from an underground performer to an A-list star. In 2024-2025, he’s busier than ever, balancing blockbuster voice work, prestige streaming series, and ambitious new TV pilots while maintaining his famously private lifestyle on a North Carolina farm.
Zach Galifianakis is experiencing a creative renaissance. After years of selective projects following his “Baskets” triumph, the 55-year-old actor delivered three major 2024 releases: the Netflix animated “Thelma the Unicorn,” and a scene-stealing recurring role across seven episodes of “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4 alongside Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez.
When Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch” premiered in May 2025, Galifianakis voiced the alien scientist Dr Jumba Jookiba, and the film became a massive commercial hit, grossing over $1 billion worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing live-action/animated hybrid in cinema history.
Currently filming AMC’s tech industry drama “The Audacity” (where he plays Carl Bardolph, a disillusioned billionaire), Galifianakis also has an FX pilot for “Very Young Frankenstein”, a Mel Brooks-sanctioned comedy directed by Taika Waititi, ordered in September 2025, plus the art world dark comedy “The Gallerist” with Natalie Portman, Jenna Ortega, and Charli XCX awaiting a 2026 theatrical release. This prolific period marks one of his busiest stretches in recent years.
Biography
Born October 1, 1969, in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, Zachary Knight Galifianakis inherited an eclectic heritage that would later inform his unique comedic sensibility.
His paternal grandparents, Emmanuel “Mike” Galifianakis and Sophia Kastrinakis, emigrated from Heraklion, Crete, bringing Greek Orthodox traditions to the American South. At the same time, his mother, Mary Frances (née Cashion), contributed Scots-Irish, English, Welsh, and French Huguenot ancestry.
His father, Harry, worked as a heating oil vendor, and his mother owned and directed a community arts centre, cultivating young Zach’s creative instincts. The family included older brother Greg (who later appeared in “Between Two Ferns: The Movie” as Greg Tooba) and younger sister Merritt.
Notably, his late uncle, Nick Galifianakis, served as a U.S. House Representative from 1967 to 1973 and ran for Senate against Jesse Helms in 1972. Meanwhile, his cousin, Nick Galifianakis, became a Washington Post cartoonist. Politics and creativity clearly ran in the family.
Galifianakis attended North Carolina State University, majoring in communications while working at a public-access television station, but dropped out one credit short of graduating. A decision that launched his unconventional path to stardom.
In the mid-1990s, he moved to New York City, where fellow comedian Lisa de Larios encouraged him to try stand-up comedy.
His first performance took place at Hamburger Harry’s restaurant in Times Square around 1995, launching a career defined by deliberately awkward, deadpan, confrontational comedy that aligned with alternative comedy traditions.
After roughly a year performing in New York clubs, laundromats, and coffee shops, he relocated to Los Angeles, believing the West Coast would better appreciate his bizarre brand of humour.
Career
The road to recognition proved long and winding. Galifianakis landed his television debut on “Boston Common” in 1996, followed by a legendary two-week stint as an SNL writer. He quit after writing a sketch involving Will Ferrell as a bodyguard to Britney Spears’ belly button (she stared at him after the pitch and said, “Yeah, that’s funny”).
His 2002 VH1 talk show “Late World with Zach” lasted just nine weeks, but persistent work in shows like “Tru Calling” (2003-2005), “Reno 911!” (as crossbow enthusiast Frisbee), and Adult Swim’s “Tim and Eric Awesome Show” (as unhinged acting coach Tairy Greene) built a cult following. His 2006 stand-up special “Live at the Purple Onion” became one of Netflix’s first original programs.
In 2008, he co-created “Between Two Ferns” with Scott Aukerman, the deliberately low-budget web series featuring awkward celebrity interviews conducted between two potted ferns.
Everything changed with 2009’s “The Hangover.” After more than a decade of minor roles, Galifianakis’s portrayal of the childlike, socially inappropriate Alan Garner became an instant cultural phenomenon.
The role was rewritten after Jack Black and other actors refused it, and Galifianakis made it unforgettable, winning the MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance.
The film’s massive success led to “The Hangover Part II” (2011) and “Part III” (2013), earning him approximately $40-50 million from the trilogy —a transformative sum that gave him greater creative freedom.
He earned just under $1 million for the first film, jumped to $5 million upfront plus 4% of gross profits (approximately $25 million total) for Part II, and commanded $15 million upfront for Part III.
His post-Hangover career balanced comedy blockbusters (“Due Date,” “The Campaign” with Will Ferrell) with critically acclaimed work. His 2014 performance in “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” earned him a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast alongside Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, and Emma Stone when the film won Best Picture.
He also did voice work in “Puss in Boots” (2011, as Humpty Dumpty), “The Lego Batman Movie” (2017, as The Joker), and “Missing Link” (2019).
President Barack Obama in Between Two Ferns
While “Between Two Ferns” launched in 2008, it achieved unprecedented cultural impact on March 11, 2014, when President Barack Obama appeared as a guest. Filmed February 24 in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room to promote Healthcare.gov enrollment before the March 31 deadline, the episode garnered over 50 million views. It made Funny or Die studio the top referrer to Healthcare.gov.
Memorable moments included Obama asking, “Where’s your birth certificate?” after Galifianakis joked about Kenya being Obama’s “home country,” and Zach questioning why Obama “got the guy who created the Zune to create your website.”
When Obama arrived on set, he enthusiastically clapped and yelled “Two Ferns!” to show that he fully understood the show’s irreverent concept. The series won Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program in both 2014 (for the episode featuring Obama) and 2015 (for the episode featuring Brad Pitt).
The 2019 Netflix film “Between Two Ferns: The Movie” extended the format to feature length, featuring interviews with Matthew McConaughey, David Letterman, Benedict Cumberbatch, and others.
However, in a September 2024 Newsweek interview, Galifianakis definitively stated the show won’t return: “We’re living in meaner times and I’m not sure that show would be as appreciated nowadays. I’ve been asked to do it, and I’ve gotten close to doing them, but I don’t really pursue it.”
From January 2016 to August 2019, Galifianakis co-created, executive-produced, and starred in FX’s “Baskets,” playing the challenging dual role of Chip Baskets (a failed professional clown from Paris working as a rodeo clown in Bakersfield) and Dale Baskets (Chip’s twin brother). Co-created by Louis C.K. and Jonathan Krisel, the tragicomic series earned Galifianakis a 2017 Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, while co-star Louie Anderson won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, playing their mother, Christine.
The show, which ran four seasons and 40 episodes, was inspired by master clown Philippe Gaulier’s École Philippe Gaulier in France. The series explored working-class struggles and artistic dreams deferred with unusual sensitivity.
Personal Life
Despite Hollywood success, Galifianakis maintains serious privacy. In August 2012, he married Quinn Lundberg, a Canadian charity worker and co-founder of the nonprofit Growing Voices (which operated from 2008-2016, supporting community-based development projects in places like Malawi and establishing a domestic violence centre in North Carolina).
Quinn later co-founded LOOM in 2017, an inclusive parenting centre in Los Angeles focused on sexual, reproductive, and parenting health. The couple sent fake wedding invitations to the media to maintain privacy for their intimate 30-minute ceremony at UBC Farm in Vancouver.
They have two sons: one born on September 7, 2013 (the name has never been publicly revealed—Galifianakis skipped the Toronto Film Festival premiere of “Are You Here” to attend the birth), and Rufus Emmanuel Lundberg, born on November 7, 2016, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles.
Remarkably, Galifianakis told Entertainment Tonight in 2021 that his sons think he’s “a librarian” or “assistant librarian” and have never seen “The Hangover”—”they shall never know of it.”
The family splits time between a house in Venice, Los Angeles, and a 60-acre farm in Sparta, Alleghany County, North Carolina, where Galifianakis grows blueberries, apples, and pumpkins. He originally planned to transform the property into a writers’ retreat with cabins, and in 2007, he filmed Kanye West’s “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” music video there.
Net Worth
Galifianakis’s net worth is estimated to be between $50 million and $55 million. His wealth has shown steady growth, increasing from $35 million in 2020 to $40 million in 2021, $45 million in 2022, $50 million in 2023, and is estimated to reach $55 million in 2024.
Beyond The Hangover trilogy’s massive payday, he earned substantial sums from “Baskets” (reportedly $400,000-$600,000 per episode over 40 episodes), “Between Two Ferns: The Movie” (approximately $5 million from Netflix), and consistent voice acting work in major animated films.
“Puss in Boots” earned $555 million worldwide, “G-Force” made $293 million, and his recent “Lilo & Stitch” surpassed $1 billion worldwide, with voice actors typically receiving a percentage of such blockbusters’ grosses.
Despite this wealth, Galifianakis lives modestly; he’s driven the same hybrid car for over 20 years, avoids social media entirely, and maintains that “celebrity worship is bad for our culture.”
Awards
Galifianakis’s trophy case includes two Primetime Emmy Awards (2014 and 2015 for Outstanding Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program for “Between Two Ferns”), two Screen Actors Guild Awards (2015 for Best Cast in “Birdman” and 2025 for Best Comedy Ensemble in “Only Murders in the Building”), an MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance (“The Hangover”), and multiple Webby and Streamy Awards for his pioneering web content.
He received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for “Baskets” (2017) and additional short-form variety recognition for the “Between Two Ferns” movie. Voice acting earned him Annie Award nominations for “Puss in Boots” (2012) and “The Lego Batman Movie” (2018), while his “Birdman” ensemble garnered over a dozen critics’ circle awards.
Quiet Philanthropy
Perhaps the most revealing story about Galifianakis’s character involves Marie “Mimi” Haist, a homeless woman he met in the 1990s at a Santa Monica laundromat where she lived and worked for tips while teaching the struggling comedian how to wash clothes. When he learned she was homeless in the early 2010s, he found and paid rent for an apartment across from the laundromat.
He introduced her to Renée Zellweger, who furnished the apartment and bought groceries, and regularly brought Mimi as his date to red carpet premieres for “The Hangover Part II,” “The Hangover Part III,” and “The Campaign.”
Their friendship was documented in the 2015 film “Queen Mimi,” and Galifianakis maintained their relationship until Mimi died in 2021 at the age of 95-96. He never publicised this generosity. It only became known through the documentary and Mimi’s own accounts. Additionally, in 2014, he raised $20,000 with Sarah Silverman for the Texas Abortion Fund in response to restrictive legislation, demonstrating consistent support for progressive causes.
Trivia
The name game: For five years, Galifianakis and his sister called their brother Greg “Craig”, and Greg never once acknowledged it, creating an absurdist family prank worthy of his comedy.
Bill Maher’s marijuana moment: In October 2010, on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” during a discussion about California’s Proposition 19, Galifianakis lit what appeared to be a marijuana cigarette live on air. Both maintain it was fake, but filmed live with no way to edit, no one knows for sure.
SNL transformations: He twice dramatically changed his appearance mid-show while hosting, in March 2010, he shaved his trademark beard during a sketch and closed the show wearing a fake one; in March 2011, he shaved his head into a Mr. T-style mohawk for a sketch that never even aired.
Weight loss that shocked Hollywood: After quitting drinking, Galifianakis lost dramatic weight, becoming nearly unrecognisable at the 2015 SAG Awards, with a slim figure, a trimmed beard, and a man bun. When asked about the transformation on the red carpet, he deadpanned, “I’m… I’m dying.” Director Todd Phillips made him wear a fat suit for “The Hangover Part III” because his weight loss didn’t suit Alan’s character.
Hangover regrets: Despite the franchise making him wealthy and famous, Galifianakis later admitted, “I wished we had just done one. I think leave well enough alone sometimes.” He joked to Conan O’Brien that “The Hangover 3 should just be the three of us playing Parcheesi, and nothing happens,” and when asked about a fourth film, suggested “maybe if they made a Pixar version of it.”
Galifianakis has no social media presence and has claimed, “I don’t have a phone; I’m off the grid. I don’t want you people looking at my texts.” He believes “the mystery or allure of an actor is what draws the audience to them” and that maintaining privacy enhances his craft.