Keir O'Donnell
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| Keir O'Donnell | |
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| Born | November 8, 1978 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
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| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 2002–present |
Keir O'Donnell (born 8 November 1978) is an actor most notable for roles as Todd Cleary in Wedding Crashers and Veck Simms in Paul Blart Mall Cop. He also has had guest appearances in episodes of the hit television series Lost, CSI, and The Closer.
He maintains tri-citizenship with Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Keir O'Donnell was born on 8 November 1978, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia to an Australian father of Irish descent and an English mother. He grew up in the suburb of St. Ives, outside of Sydney. When he was eight years old he and his family moved to Harvard, Massachusetts, United States. He has one sibling, a brother, Patrick, who is eighteen months older. His name is of Gaelic origin and translates to "Little Dark One" (It is pronounced Keer, like "beer" with a "K")
[edit] Early career
O'Donnell attended high school at The Bromfield School in Harvard, Massachusetts. The Bromfield school has a renowned drama department, and he was involved in numerous productions both on the festival circuit and in community theater. In 1996 he was awarded a Massachusetts High School Drama Guild Acting Scholarship. Upon graduation he joined the first class of the newly created four-year classical theatre acting conservatory at The Hartt School in Hartford, Connecticut. The Hartt School of Theatre was established by Malcolm Morrison and Alan Rust (N.C.S.A. North Carolina School of the Arts). At the Hartt School he performed in numerous plays including Three Sisters, Lysistrata, Twelfth Night, Philadelphia Here I Come, and played Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. He graduated in 2000 and was promptly accepted into the prestigious Hartford Stage Co. Regional Theatre under the tutelage of Michael Wilson. While there he appeared in Macbeth and A Christmas Carol.
At the beginning of 2001 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue work in film and television. In the fall of 2001 he was cast as a lead in the U.S. premiere of The Man Who Never Yet Saw Woman's Nakedness by Moritz Rinke, at The Odyssey Theatre in West Los Angeles. The performances were produced in cooperation with The Goethe Institute. It was well received and became a "Pick of the Week" in LA Weekly.
[edit] Feature Films
After several student and independent films, Keir landed the role of Todd Cleary in New Line Cinema's Wedding Crashers. The film went on to become the highest grossing R-Rated comedy of all time. Not long after Crashers Vince Vaughn invited Keir to join him on the road for his Wild West Comedy Tour. A tour that hit 30 cities in 30 days across the country. Keir would appear on stage with Vince as a special guest doing improv skits. The tour was filmed and can be seen as the documentary: Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show.
Later he re-teamed with Vince Vaughn for Universal Pictures' The Break Up, also starring Jennifer Aniston. Keir costarred in the indie comedy "Flakes" with Aaron Stanford and Zooey Deschanel. It was premiered at the 2007 South By Southwest Film Festival. Keir plays a car thief who shows Tim Robbins how to disable car alarms in director/writer Henry Bean's second film.Noise The film was featured at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. In the Germ's biopic "What We Do is Secret" Keir appears as the bands first manager Chris Ashford. The film opened at the 2008 LA Film Festival. Keir can be seen as Dr. Ben Stravinsky in the horror movie Pathology with Milo Ventimiglia. He also costars in the upcoming independent comedyPatriotville alongside Justin Long. O'Donnell can be seen in multiple roles, including a killer clown, in New Line Cinema's slasher flick:Amusement(Now on DVD)
Most recently he appeared in the 2009 blockbuster Paul Blart: Mall Cop alongside Kevin James. Keir plays Veck Simms, a mall cop trainee, who turns to bad guy and attempts to take over the mall. Mall Cop opened at #1 in the box office and has gone on to the largest January opening for a comedy ever. ($176,000,000.00 and counting)
Keir is currently working on the romantic comedy "When In Rome" with Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel. Disney will release the movie in August 2009.
[edit] Television Work
O'Donnell has also been in numerous television projects including the hit ABC show Lost (episode 10). In Lost mythology Keir is "Thomas",father to the baby Aaron. He filmed an unaired pilot for ABC called Lennie Rose. An episode of the CBS show CSI (episode "Up in Smoke"). And also an episode "No Good Deed" of TNT's "The Closer". Keir was on a special 50th episode of Dinner for Five on IFC in late January 2008. Guests included: Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Justin Long, Peter Billingsly, and Keir O'Donnell. Keir also guest stars in multiple episodes of the first season of the FX series Sons of Anarchy starring Ron Perlman, Charlie Hunnam and Katey Sagal. He plays mechanic/drug abuser Lowell. Keir recently appeared in an episode of the FX tv show, "IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA". The episode ("Mac and Charlie Die pt. 2") aired on Oct 2, also on FX.
