Chris Parnell
Thomas Christopher "Chris" Parnell (born February 5, 1967) is an American comic actor best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1998–2006 and currently for his recurring role as Dr. Leo Spaceman on NBC's Emmy Award-winning comedy series 30 Rock. Parnell is currently one of the lead voices on the FX animated comedy Archer. In 2010, Parnell starred alongside his former SNL castmate Horatio Sanz in the Comedy Central series Big Lake. After performing as a company player with The Groundlings for a number of years, Parnell was hired to join the cast of Saturday Night Live as a featured player on September 26, 1998, and was promoted to repertory player the following season. In the summer of 2001, budget cuts and hiring four new cast members required Lorne Michaels to dismiss two cast members; he chose to lay off Parnell and Jerry Minor over Horatio Sanz, Rachel Dratch, and Maya Rudolph. While on SNL, Parnell appeared in numerous sketches, and commercial parodies, and performed memorable impressions of various celebrities. One of his most popular sketches is Lazy Sunday, a rap video he shot with Andy Samberg about buying cupcakes and going to see The Chronicles of Narnia. He has also performed raps about hosts Jennifer Garner, Britney Spears, Kirsten Dunst and Ashton Kutcher. In the summer of 2006, Lorne Michaels announced that four cast members would be fired due to budget cuts, but he did not say who. On September 22, 2006 it was announced that three cast members had been fired: Parnell, Horatio Sanz, and Finesse Mitchell. This effectively made him the only SNL performer to have been fired twice by Lorne Michaels, though Parnell did say in a 2008 interview with The Sound of Young America podcast that he was okay with being let go this time, because he was considering leaving after that season anyway, but added that he probably would have stayed one last season if he was asked back. He had been with SNL for eight seasons; at the time only four people (Darrell Hammond, Tim Meadows, Kevin Nealon, and Al Franken) have been cast members longer. He has since made uncredited cameo appearances on the show, most recently in 2008 parodying newscasters Tom Brokaw, Jim Lehrer, and Bob Schieffer. Parnell and his former SNL castmate Horatio Sanz recently starred together in Big Lake, a 2010 sitcom on Comedy Central from executive producers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. He also recently appeared as Dr. Drummer/Santa in the SyFy Holiday Special episode from the television show Eureka, which aired on December 7, 2010 (Season 4 Episode 10).
169 acting credits
Acting · 169
The Simpsons
1989
Family Guy
1999
Rick and Morty
2013
American Dad!
2005
Friends
1994
Late Night with Seth Meyers
2014
Seinfeld
1989
Saturday Night Live
1975
Conan
2010
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
2013
Bob's Burgers
2011
Curb Your Enthusiasm
2000
Glee
2009
30 Rock
2006
Gravity Falls
2012
BoJack Horseman
2014
Robot Chicken
2005
The Goldbergs
2013
Archer
2009
Fallout
2024
black-ish
2014
The Tom and Jerry Show
2014
Love, Death & Robots
2019
Eureka
2006
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
2014
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
1993
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
2015
Caroline in the City
1995
Childrens Hospital
2008
grown-ish
2018
WordGirl
2007
Murphy Brown
1988
Elena of Avalor
2016
Drunk History
2013
Dawn of the Croods
2015
Fish Hooks
2010
Krapopolis
2023
Comedy Bang! Bang!
2012
Miracle Workers
2019
Ed
2000
Suburgatory
2011
Workaholics
2011
Close Enough
2020
My Adventures with Superman
2023
Rock, Paper, Scissors
2024
Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero
2014
Will & Grace
2017
The Hughleys
1998
The Jamie Foxx Show
1996
Match Game
2016
Hotel Transylvania
2012
Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!
2015
The Dictator
2012
Suddenly Susan
1996
The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show
2015
The $100,000 Pyramid
2016
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation
2018
Another Period
2015
Hotel Transylvania 2
2015
Great News
2017
Better Off Ted
2009
T.U.F.F. Puppy
2010
Glenn Martin, DDS
2009
21 Jump Street
2012
Bajillion Dollar Propertie$
2016
Name That Tune
2021
Hope and Gloria
1995
Adam Ruins Everything
2015
Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween
2018
Turbo
2013
Dogs in Space
2021
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night
2025
The Life & Times of Tim
2008
Ask the Storybots
2016
Bad Judge
2014
Jingle All the Way
1996
Benched
2014
Marvel's M.O.D.O.K.
2021
Garfunkel and Oates
2014
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
2022
Barely Legal
2003
The Spoils Before Dying
2015
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
2004
Union Square
1997
Happy Together
2018
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
2013
Stop! That! Train!
2026
Conrad Bloom
1998
Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday
2008
Home Sweet Home Alone
2021
Life of the Party
2018
The Ridiculous 6
2015
TV Funhouse
2000
Dummy
2020
The Hawk
2026
Escape from Planet Earth
2013
Sisters
2015
Lorne
2026
Battle of the Sexes
2017
The Laundromat
2019
Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again
2022
Hot Rod
2007
Miss Guided
2008
Oh My God... Yes! A Series of Extremely Relatable Circumstances
2025
Rhett & Link's Buddy System
2016
Senior Year
2022
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
2007
The Five-Year Engagement
2012
Big Lake
2010
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Amy Poehler
2009
Down with Love
2003
SNL50: The Homecoming Concert
2025
Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music
2025
Michael Bolton's Big, Sexy Valentine's Day Special
2017
Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie
2004
Finding ʻOhana
2021
Elena and the Secret of Avalor
2016
Alien News Desk
2019
Paper Man
2009
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend
2020
Slice
2018
Labor Pains
2009
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Will Ferrell
2002
A Loud House Christmas Movie: Naughty or Nice
2025
Our Little Secret
2024
The Grand
2007
I Just Want My Pants Back
2011
The Ladies Man
2000
Highston
2015
The Women of SNL
2010
Woody and Friends
2026
Break Point
2014
Ira & Abby
2006
I Am Woman
2020
Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice
2011
Hot Mess Holiday
2021
The Dink
2026
The Last Laugh
2019
Eavesdrop
2008
Looking for Kitty
2004
Harold
2008
Austin Found
2017
Elena of Avalor: Realm of the Jaquins
2017
Kabluey
2007
Hollywood & Wine
2011
Evil Alien Conquerors
2003
Kung Fu Magoo
2010
WordGirl: The Rise of Miss Power
2012
The Better Half
2015
Answer This!
2011
As We Know It
2023
I'm Reed Fish
2007
Mimics
2026
In Fidelity
2024
The Dogfather
2010
Sunny and Share Love You
2007
Saturday Night Live in the 2000s: Time and Again
2010
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Commercial Parodies
2006
Micro Budget
2026
Harry and the Mutant Mid-Century Furniture
—
The Religetables
2002
The Maya Rudolph Show
2014
Wake
—
Jeff Dunham: Unhinged in Hollywood
2015
AJ's Infinite Summer
2014
A Freezerburnt Christmas
2002
Millennial Hunter
2023
Yung Punx: A Punk Parable
2021
Farm Sluts
2003