Biography
In the manner of peers such as Zach Galifianakis and Bo Burnham yet marked by an unmistakably personal approach, comedian Demetri Martin pushes the limits of standup toward a hybrid that echoes performance art. He wove musical instruments, video segments, and oversized sketch-pad illustrations into his routines, refining both this unconventional method and his wide-eyed, deadpan timing across the closing years of the 1990s and the opening years of the following decade. His audience grew substantially through Comedy Central, where he first appeared as an exuberantly bewildered correspondent on The Daily Show before headlining his own series, Important Things with Demetri Martin (2009-2010). With his third comedy album, the 2012 release Standup Comedian, Martin reached the summit of the Billboard comedy chart for the initial time.
Born in New York City during 1973 and raised in Toms River, New Jersey, Demetri Martin completed his studies at Yale University, then left NYU law school to focus on comedy. His earliest television exposure arrived in 2001 via an appearance on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend. Following the 2003 one-man show If I..., which earned an award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival—one of the foremost platforms for alternative comedians—Martin joined the writing staff at Late Night with Conan O’Brien while readying his first televised comedy special. That 2004 special, Comedy Central Presents: Demetri Martin, included performances by Martin’s mother and grandmother; the latter also appeared in his debut home video and audio release, These Are Jokes, which came out in September 2006. Later that same year, Martin secured a prominent Comedy Central role on The Daily Show as “senior youth correspondent,” a fond satire of stereotypes surrounding the program’s typical college-age viewers. In early 2007, These Are Jokes climbed to number three on the comedy albums chart and entered the Top 40 of Billboard’s independent albums chart.
During 2009 Martin introduced the sketch comedy series Important Things with Demetri Martin on Comedy Central, whose second and concluding season aired in 2010. In the interval between seasons he portrayed the central figure in Ang Lee’s 2009 film Taking Woodstock. He resumed comedy-album work on the Comedy Central label in 2012 with the fittingly named Standup Comedian. As his following expanded, he joined comedians including Dave Chappelle, Aziz Ansari, and Sarah Silverman on the Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival tour in both 2013 and 2014. His standup special Live (At the Time), recorded at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C., debuted on Netflix in 2015.
Martin achieved his directorial debut with the comedy-drama Dean, which he also wrote and in which he starred. The film screened at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, where it captured the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, before reaching theaters in 2017. The subsequent year saw Live (At the Time) issued in multiple formats by 800 Pound Gorilla.
Born in New York City during 1973 and raised in Toms River, New Jersey, Demetri Martin completed his studies at Yale University, then left NYU law school to focus on comedy. His earliest television exposure arrived in 2001 via an appearance on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend. Following the 2003 one-man show If I..., which earned an award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival—one of the foremost platforms for alternative comedians—Martin joined the writing staff at Late Night with Conan O’Brien while readying his first televised comedy special. That 2004 special, Comedy Central Presents: Demetri Martin, included performances by Martin’s mother and grandmother; the latter also appeared in his debut home video and audio release, These Are Jokes, which came out in September 2006. Later that same year, Martin secured a prominent Comedy Central role on The Daily Show as “senior youth correspondent,” a fond satire of stereotypes surrounding the program’s typical college-age viewers. In early 2007, These Are Jokes climbed to number three on the comedy albums chart and entered the Top 40 of Billboard’s independent albums chart.
During 2009 Martin introduced the sketch comedy series Important Things with Demetri Martin on Comedy Central, whose second and concluding season aired in 2010. In the interval between seasons he portrayed the central figure in Ang Lee’s 2009 film Taking Woodstock. He resumed comedy-album work on the Comedy Central label in 2012 with the fittingly named Standup Comedian. As his following expanded, he joined comedians including Dave Chappelle, Aziz Ansari, and Sarah Silverman on the Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival tour in both 2013 and 2014. His standup special Live (At the Time), recorded at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C., debuted on Netflix in 2015.
Martin achieved his directorial debut with the comedy-drama Dean, which he also wrote and in which he starred. The film screened at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, where it captured the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, before reaching theaters in 2017. The subsequent year saw Live (At the Time) issued in multiple formats by 800 Pound Gorilla.