Ben Schwartz

Ben Schwartz is a New York-born actor, comedian, writer, and improviser whose work spans television, film, voice acting, and live long-form performance. He trained at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre beginning in 2003 and performed on four Harold teams there, co-founded the sketch and improv team Hot Sauce, and built a parallel career as a television writer before breaking through as Jean-Ralphio Saperstein on Parks and Recreation. He is the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog in the film series bearing that character's name. In September 2023 he sold out Radio City Music Hall with Ben Schwartz and Friends, the first long-form improv show to headline that venue.

Career

Ben Schwartz graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York in 2003 with a double major in anthropology and psychology. He discovered improvisation as an undergraduate through the campus improv group Idle Minds, an audition he made after being encouraged by his then-girlfriend. Inspired initially by reruns of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, he pursued improv as a central practice from that point forward.

After graduating, Schwartz moved to New York City and joined the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where he interned in exchange for free classes. He trained and performed at UCB from 2003 onward, appearing on the Harold teams Tantrum, T.R.U.C.K.S., Killebrew, and Renegade 77. He co-founded the sketch and improv team Hot Sauce with Adam Pally and Gil Ozeri. Hot Sauce won the 2006 UCB Cagematch Championships and was selected to perform at the 2007 Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal in a sketch showcase directed by Bob Odenkirk. Their shows Hot Sauce Sells Out and 4th Floor Walk-Up both earned TimeOut New York Critic's Pick designations.

Concurrent with his UCB work, Schwartz built a career as a comedy writer. He was a staff writer for the third season of Adult Swim's Robot Chicken and contributed freelance writing to Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update segment and to the monologues of the Late Show with David Letterman. He created RejectedJokes.com, a site collecting material that had not made air, and produced content for Turner Network's SuperDeluxe.com, where his short film Bronx World Travelers: Press Conference received two Webby Award nominations. He co-wrote the humor book Grandma's Dead: Breaking Bad News with Baby Animals, published by HarperCollins. In 2009 he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for his co-writing contribution to Hugh Jackman's opening number at the Academy Awards.

His acting career accelerated with a small role in The Other Guys (2010) and a major breakthrough as the recurring character Jean-Ralphio Saperstein on NBC's Parks and Recreation, the Amy Poehler sitcom he appeared on across its run. He subsequently starred as Clyde Oberholt on the Showtime series House of Lies and appeared in This Is Where I Leave You alongside Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, and Adam Driver. He has appeared in the Apple TV+ series The Afterparty and Netflix's Space Force, among other television credits.

As a voice actor, Schwartz voices Randy Cunningham on Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, Dewey Duck on DuckTales, Leonardo on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Sonic the Hedgehog in the Sonic the Hedgehog film series.

Schwartz has sustained a live long-form improv practice throughout his screen career, performing at Carnegie Hall, the Beacon Theatre, and venues across the country. In September 2023 he headlined Radio City Music Hall with Ben Schwartz and Friends, filling all 6,013 seats and becoming the first long-form improv performer to headline that venue.

In 2024 he delivered the commencement address at Union College and received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the institution.

Historical Context

Schwartz's career trajectory illustrates the pathway that UCB opened for New York-based improvisers during the 2000s into mainstream media careers. His progression from UCB Harold teams to television writing to starring screen roles followed a route that Amy Poehler, Adam McKay, and others had demonstrated was available through the UCB pipeline, but Schwartz also maintained his live improv practice in ways that most performers who crossed into film and television did not sustain publicly.

His Radio City Music Hall show in September 2023 represented a genuinely novel moment in long-form improv's public history. The form had been performed in small theatres and festivals for decades; the idea of selling out a 6,013-seat venue with an unscripted long-form show was without precedent at that scale. The event attracted significant press coverage and was framed both by Schwartz and journalists as a milestone for improv as a mainstream performance form.

His UCB ensemble Hot Sauce, with Adam Pally and Gil Ozeri, was among the more formally visible sketch and improv groups working in New York during the mid-2000s, with TimeOut New York recognition and the 2006 Cagematch Championship marking it as a standout ensemble in UCB's competitive team culture. The group's 2007 performance at Just for Laughs in a showcase directed by Bob Odenkirk placed them in significant company at a major international comedy festival.

Schwartz's Emmy win in 2009 for the Hugh Jackman Academy Awards opening number connected his writing career to one of American television's most-watched annual events, and his continued four Emmy nominations place him among performers who have achieved recognition across multiple categories of work in comedy.

Legacy

Schwartz's September 2023 Radio City Music Hall sellout established a documented precedent for long-form improv at major concert and entertainment venue scale, and is cited in improv community discussion as a benchmark event for the form's mainstream reach. His UCB Harold team career and Hot Sauce ensemble contributed to the competitive team culture of UCB during its peak institutional influence on New York comedy in the 2000s. As the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog he has brought a UCB-trained improviser's timing and character sensibility to one of the most globally distributed entertainment franchises of the early 2020s.

Early Life and Training

Ben Schwartz grew up in New York City, later attending Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he graduated in 2003 with a double major in anthropology and psychology. He discovered improvisational comedy through the campus improv group Idle Minds and subsequently moved to New York City to pursue performance, training at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.