Who is Kevin Elliot Pollak?

Who is Kevin Elliot Pollak? The entertainment and acting world knows him as Kevin Pollak. He  is an American actor, impressionist and comedian. He started performing stand-up comedy at the age of ten and touring professionally at age twenty. In 1988, Pollak landed a role in George Lucas’ Willow, directed by Ron Howard, and began an acting career.

Personal life

Pollak was born October 30, 1957  in San Francisco, California, the son of Elaine Harlow and Bob Pollak.^[1] He went to high school at Pioneer High School in San Jose. In 2008, he filed for divorce from Lucy Webb, his wife for 13 years.^[2]

Acting career

As an actor, Pollak's trademark is usually playing the best friend or confidant characters to the leading men, as he did in Ricochet, End of Days, A Few Good Men (1992) and The Wedding Planner. However, Pollak has played a wide variety of parts; he played a gangster in The Whole Nine Yards (2000) and a criminal in The Usual Suspects (1995). He also briefly hosted Celebrity Poker Showdown in its first season. His most substantial role to date was in Deterrence (1999), in which he played the main character: a Vice President who must take over for a deceased President and deal with a nuclear crisis.
In December 2006, he played Karl Kreutzfeld in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries The Lost Room. Through 2008, he had a recurring role as a District Attorney on the television series Shark.
In March 2008, Pollak played himself in the web series The Writers Room on Crackle.^[3] In the summer of 1985 Kevin was in the sketch comedy show "Comedy Break" with Mack Dryden, Jamie Alcroft and Jan Hooks. In 2010 portrayed Sheriff Tom Wagner in Choose.^[4]
In January 2010, Pollak was scheduled to host Our Little Genius on FOX, but the series was pulled before it could air on television.
In December 2010, Pollak is scheduled to host Million Dollar Money Drop, again on the FOX network.

Directing

He worked currently on his directorial debut the Horror web series Vamped Out.^[5] Jason Antoon, Seana Kofoed and Samm Levine will play the lead role, the screenbook based on simple joke under Antoon and Pollak.^[6]

Work as comedian

As a comedian, Pollak's most popular work was his 1992 HBO special Stop With the Kicking: Kevin Pollak in Concert, directed by comedian David Steinberg and produced by Boston comedy writer Martin Olson.
Another of his widely known impressions is that of fellow actor William Shatner; specifically, imitations of Shatner's role as Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek. In 1994 special editions of Canadian TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly, published to commemorate the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Pollak writes a guide of how to do an impersonation of Kirk. Pollak also does impressions of fellow actor Alan Arkin. As a practical joke, Pollak left a message on Arkin's answering machine that was so accurate, Arkin was convinced he himself left the message.

Kevin Pollak's Chat Show

In April 2009, Pollak partnered with Jason Calacanis on a weekly internet talk show, Kevin Pollak's Chat Show. Guests for the show include film directors Kevin Smith and Mike Binder, comedian Jimmy Pardo, and actors Nia Vardalos, Illeana Douglas, Bryan Cranston, Dana Carvey, Matthew Perry, Jon Hamm, Paul Rudd, and Jason Lee. A full list of guests can be found in the main article.

The guest interviews are very in-depth and typically longer than an hour in duration, often exceeding two hours. Common topics include the guests' childhoods, how they got into the business they are in (typically show business), how they got inspired to start certain creative endeavors, and unique experiences they have had while working. Viewers can interact via chat room during the show, and sometimes questions for the guest posed in the chat room are answered live.
The show's self-described "Paul Schaffer" is actor Samm Levine.
Recurring segments on the show include:

• "The Larry King Game," which requires the guest to do a bad Larry King impression, reveal something about oneself (in the persona of Larry King) and then go to the phones and say a funny sounding city
• "Tweet Five," where Kevin reads the guest five questions from a Twitter user, usually in a this-or-that style
• "Who Tweeted," in which a host (typically Samm Levine) reads tweets from the Twitter accounts of three female celebrities (the list of actresses varies, but typically includes Demi Moore, Tyra Banks, and Paris Hilton) and Kevin Pollak and his Guest compete against each other gameshow-style to guess who authored each tweet.

The show airs live online on Sunday evenings, and each episode is later released on YouTube and podcast markets such as iTunes.

Filmography

Million Dollar Mystery (1987) Willow (1988) Avalon (1990) L.A. Story (1991) Another You (1991) Ricochet (1991) Morton & Hayes (1991) (TV series) A Few Good Men (1992) The Opposite Sex and How to Live with Them (1992) Indian Summer (1993) Wayne's World 2 (1993) Grumpy Old Men (1993) ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter (1994) Clean Slate (1994) Miami Rhapsody (1995) The Usual Suspects (1995) Canadian Bacon (1995) Casino (1995) Grumpier Old Men (1995) Chameleon (1995) House Arrest (1996) The Drew Carey Show (1995) (TV series, first season only) That Thing You Do! (1996) Perversions of Science (1997) (TV series, episode Boxed In) Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997) The Don's Analyst (1998) Buffalo ’66 (1998) Hoods (1998) From the Earth to the Moon (1998) (TV miniseries) Outside Ozona (1998) Ruby Bridges (1998) She's All That (1999) The Sex Monster (1999) Deterrence (1999) End of Days (1999)

Deal of a Lifetime (1999) Work with Me (1999) (TV series) The Whole Nine Yards (2000) Steal This Movie! (2000) The Wedding Planner (2001) 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001) Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001) Stolen Summer (2002) Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002) Juwanna Mann (2002) Mother Ghost (2002) The Santa Clause 2 (2002) Rolling Kansas (2003) Blizzard (2003) Seven Times Lucky (2004) The Whole Ten Yards (2004) Our Time Is Up (2004) Hostage (2005) Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D (2005) (voice) The Aristocrats (2005) Niagara Motel (2006) The Lost Room (2006) (Sci Fi Channel miniseries) The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006) The Staircase Murders (2007) (TV) Shark (2007–2008) (TV series) Numb (2007) Otis (2008) Picture This (2008) Entourage (2008) (TV series) Middle Men (2009) 2:13 (2009) Choose (2009) Cop Out (2010) Columbus Circle (2010) (also co-writer) Red State (2011)

To see more of Who Is click here