Colin Jost Biography

Colin Kelly Jost (born June 29, 1982) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and writer for the TV program Saturday Night Live. On March 1, 2014, he joined the show's cast as a featured player and succeeded Seth Meyers as the co-anchor of Weekend Update. As of October 17, 2015, Jost stepped away from his duties as the NBC sketch show's head writer.

Early life

Colin Jost was born and raised on Staten Island in New York. He has one brother, Casey Jost, who had a role in Staten Island Summer. His mother, Kerry J. Kelly, is the chief medical officer for the New York City Fire Department and a physician on Staten Island, and his father, Daniel A. Jost, is a former teacher at Staten Island Technical High School. Jost was raised Catholic. He attended Regis High School in Manhattan and Harvard University, where he was president of the Harvard Lampoon.

Career

Shortly after graduating from Harvard, Jost was hired as a writer at Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 2005 at 22 years old and later became SNL's writing supervisor from 2009-2012, before becoming co-head writer from 2012 to 2015. He often collaborates with fellow SNL co-head writer Rob Klein. During the summer hiatus following the 2012-2013 season, he was asked by producer Lorne Michaels if he could do the "Weekend Update" feature, as co-anchor Seth Meyers would soon be leaving to host Late Night with Seth Meyers. Jost accepted and replaced Meyers with the March 1, 2014 episode. Jost names Norm Macdonald as a primary influence for his "Update" anchor work, as Mcdonald's tone was the one Jost grew up with in high school. He also names Tina Fey as an influence.In addition to Weekend Update, Jost made a brief cameo appearance as John Kasich in a Republican presidential debate sketch.

As a stand up comedian, Colin has appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon as well as on TBS and HBO. He was selected as a "New Face" at the Montreal Just For Laughs festival in 2009, and has since appeared several times at the Chicago Just For Laughs festival (2011, 2012) and the Montreal festival (2010, 2012). Jost has published three "Shouts and Murmurs" pieces in The New Yorker magazine, in addition to writing for The New York Times Magazine, the Huffington Post, the Staten Island Advance and Radar. Jost wrote the screenplay and played a minor role in the 2015 comedy film Staten Island Summer. He also played a minor role as Paul in the 2016 romantic comedy film How to Be Single.

Awards and honors

Jost has been nominated for five Emmy Awards. He won a Peabody Award in 2009 and three Writers Guild (WGA) awards (2007, 2009, 2010) for his work on Saturday Night Live.

He was named a Breakout Artist by Carolines on Broadway in 2011.

Bibliography

Essays and reporting

• Jost, Colin (April 4th, 2011). Explaining Your Time Warner Bill. Shouts & Murmurs. The New Yorker