Jeff Richards

Jeff Richards joined the cast of Saturday Night Live as a Featured Player in September 2001. Jeff comes to SNL after touring the country doing stand-up comedy and impressions.

Growing up in Walnut Creek, California a suburb of San Francisco, Jeff
excelled in both football and baseball. When a knee injury forced him off the field in his senior year of high school, he focused on public access television. His show "Hanson Live" put Jeff in front of and behind the camera for the first time. After graduating high school, Jeff hosted a morning show radio and created a sketch comedy show that also appeared on public access TV in the bay area. In 1996 he began attending the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill. There he joined the Chapel Hill Improv Players (CHIPS) where he performed live comedy for the first time. Friends, family and teachers encouraged Jeff to unitize his gifts of impersonation as a stand up comedian. Jeff soon began hosting shows at Charlie Goodnights in Raleigh, North Carolina.

In late 1997, Jeff moved to Los Angeles to pursue comedy as a career. He soon became a regular at the world famous Comedy Store and appeared in several local and nationwide commercials. He began touring comedy clubs across the country. In 2000 Jeff briefly joined the cast of Fox¹s MAD TV, appearing most memorably as David Letterman. In 2001, Jeff performed on CBS Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn and NBC¹s Late Friday. His performance on Late Friday caught the attention of Saturday Night Live who invited him to audition and then to become a feature player for the 27th season of the show.

Jeff¹s high-energy stand-up is a mix of his-growing arsenal of impressions (including Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, Louie Anderson, Kevin Spacey, Gary Shandling, Charlie Rose, Don Imus, Dustin Hoffman, and Ozzy Osborne) and outrageous original characters (including the "knife guy", the "drunk girlfriend," her "jealous boyfriend" and the "jock/meathead" from every 80¹s teen movie).