Chris Redd

Christopher Jerell Redd (born March 25, 1985) is an American comedian and actor. After several years performing stand-up comedy, Redd was hired to join the cast of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live ahead of the show's 43rd season in 2017, and serving as a cast member for five seasons until 2022. For his work on the show, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics in 2018 for co-writing the SNL song "Come Back Barack".

He also appeared in the film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016) and television sitcoms Disjointed (2017–2018), and Kenan (2021–2022).

Early life Redd was born on March 25, 1985, in St. Louis, Missouri, and moved to Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, at age eight. According to Redd, he had a childhood stutter that he overcame by learning how to rap. He attended Naperville schools, including Gregory Middle School and Neuqua Valley High School, and later attended community college in Elgin, Illinois, where he took his first improvisational theater class. but switched to sketch comedy in 2009 after being inspired by the work of Steve Carell and realizing that he enjoyed and thrived more in improvisational comedy. He took comedy classes at Jokes & Notes, a now-closed comedy club in Chicago. He moved to Los Angeles in 2016 to further pursue an acting career, and made his film debut as Hunter the Hungry, an underground rapper, in the 2016 mockumentary Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Redd co-starred in the 2017–2018 Netflix comedy series Disjointed, in which he played the role of Dank, a stoner.

After a previous unsuccessful audition for Saturday Night Live, Redd joined the show's cast as a featured player for season 43, alongside fellow newcomers Heidi Gardner and Luke Null. In 2018, Redd won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for writing the song "Come Back Barack", which lamented former president Barack Obama's departure from the White House and aired during Chance the Rapper's episode on November 18, 2017. The award was shared with co-writers Kenan Thompson and Will Stephen, and composer Eli Brueggemann. Redd and Gardner were promoted to repertory status in 2019, ahead of SNLs 45th season. His celebrity impressions on the show included U.S. Senator Cory Booker, Kanye West, Sterling K. Brown, and Mayor Eric Adams. Redd left SNL in 2022, after the show's 47th season.

Redd's debut stand-up comedy album, But Here We Are, was released by Comedy Central Records in March 2019. Between 2021 and 2022, Redd co-starred in the comedy television series Kenan, alongside his SNL castmate Kenan Thompson. Their ongoing roles in both shows resulted in frequent travel between New York City, where SNL is filmed, and Los Angeles, where Kenan was filmed. Redd appeared in the 2023 film Spinning Gold as Frankie Crocker, a disc jockey for the first black music radio station in New York. Other projects include the Lorne Michaels–produced comedy series Bust Down, in which Redd plays a discontented casino employee, and a stand-up comedy special on HBO Max. In 2025, Redd joined the fourth season of Power Book III: Raising Kanan.

Personal life In October 2022, Redd was assaulted by an unknown assailant outside of a comedy club in New York. He was then taken to the hospital, and later released. Redd admitted in January 2026 that, while abusing Adderall and Xanax on SNL, he began a relationship with Kenan Thompson's wife, who had previously separated from Thompson in 2022. He implied that this relationship was related to his subsequent assault in October 2022, saying "When I got punched in the face...This time it felt like, fair. Fair enough." He further claimed that there was a "drug issue at SNL" when he began working on the show and that he sold drugs to castmates, though he later walked back the latter claim. After Second City CEO Andrew Alexander resigned during the same month over allegations of institutional racism within the group, Redd and 18 other black alumni and current employees signed an open letter calling for an independent investigation into the allegations.

Filmography Film Year Title Role Notes 2016 Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Hunter the Hungry 2018 A Futile and Stupid Gesture Skeptical Black Man Deep Murder Jace 2019 Joker Comedy Club Emcee 2020 Scare Me Carlo Vampires vs. the Bronx Andre 2023 Spinning Gold Frankie Crocker 2025 Merv Vice Principal Desmond What the F*ck Is My Password Filming

Television Year Title Role Notes 2014 Chicago P.D. Carl Episode: "Thirty Balloons" 2015 Empire Roger 2 episodes 2016 Lonely and Horny Omar 4 episodes Comedy Bang! Bang! The Cleaning Crew Rapper Episode: "Krysten Ritter Wears a Turtleneck and Black Boots" Detroiters Donut Episode: "Smilin' Jack" Sofia the First Singe (voice) Episode: "The Royal Dragon" 2017–2018 Disjointed Steven "Dank" Dankerson 18 episodes 2017–2022 Saturday Night Live Himself/Various Repertory playerPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics 2018 Teachers Darnell Episode: "For Poorer or Poorer" 2019 Star vs. the Forces of Evil Additional voices Episode: "Junkin' Janna/A Spell with No Name" Big Mouth Additional voice 2 episodes

Discography Year Title Notes 2019 But Here We Are Stand-up comedy album