Age: 60
Birthplace: San Francisco, California, United States
Robert Michael "Rob" Schneider (born October 31, 1963) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, he went on to a successful career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedy films Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, The Hot Chick, The Benchwarmers, and Grown Ups.
Schneider was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in the nearby suburb of Pacifica. He is the son of Pilar (née Monroe), a former kindergarten teacher and ex-school board president, and Marvin Schneider, a real estate broker. His father was Jewish and his mother was Catholic. Schneider's maternal grandmother was a Filipina who met and married his grandfather, a white American army private, while he was stationed in the Philippines. His mixed background is a common theme in his comedy acts. His older brother, John, is a producer. Schneider graduated from Terra Nova High School in 1982.
Schneider started his stand-up comedy career while still in high school, opening for San Francisco favorites Head On, a band managed by his older brother John. After high school, he played Bay Area nightclubs such as the Holy City Zoo and The Other Cafe, and was a regular guest on local radio programs. After opening a show by comedian Dennis Miller in 1987, Schneider won a slot on HBO's 13th Annual Young Comedians special, which was hosted by Miller. Schneider's appearance on the HBO special led to a position as a writer for the late night NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live.
Schneider was hired at Saturday Night Live in 1988. Schneider swiftly graduated from writer and featured player to full cast member. From 1990 to 1994 at SNL, he played such roles as "Tiny Elvis" and "Orgasm Guy". His best known recurring character was Richard Laymer, an office worker whose desk was stuck beside the photocopier, and who addressed each of his fellow employees with an endless stream of annoying nicknames. Schneider is featured in the video release The Bad Boys of Saturday Night Live, along with colleagues Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Chris Farley.
After leaving SNL, Schneider played supporting roles in a series of movies including Surf Ninjas, Judge Dredd, The Beverly Hillbillies, Demolition Man and Down Periscope. He also appeared in a recurring part on the TV series Coach. In 1996, he co-starred in the NBC sit-com Men Behaving Badly, an American take on the hit British series of the same name. The U.S. version ran for two seasons.
Schneider starred in the 1999 feature film Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, a tale of a fish-tank cleaner who incurs a massive debt and is forced to become a "man-whore." This was followed by The Animal, about a man given animal powers by a mad scientist; The Hot Chick, wherein the mind of a petty thief played by Schneider is mystically switched into the body of a pretty, but mean-spirited high school cheerleader (Rachel McAdams); and the sequel Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. The latter movie was not well received by critics or moviegoers, and as a result, Schneider won a 2005 Worst Actor Razzie Award for his role in the film.
In 2006, Schneider co-starred in the baseball-themed family comedy The Benchwarmers, along with his fellow SNL alumnus David Spade as well as Jon Heder. Other film roles include Schneider's appearance with Jim Henson's Muppets in the 1999 film Muppets from Space, and his role as a San Francisco hobo in the 2004 remake of Around the World in 80 Days.
Schneider's directorial debut, the comedy Big Stan, was released in some overseas markets during the fall of 2008, with a U.S. release in early 2009. In the film, he starred as a con artist who is arrested for perpetrating real-estate scams. He is sentenced to prison, so he takes a crash-course in martial arts to survive incarceration.
Schneider has also appeared in numerous comedies starring his SNL comrade Adam Sandler, most recently on 2010s Grown Ups. The comedic characters Schneider plays in these films include an overly enthusiastic Cajun man who proclaims the catch-phrase, "You can do it!"; an amiable Middle Eastern delivery boy; a prison inmate; and Sandler's one-eyed Hawaiian sidekick, Ula. Schneider has uttered the line "You can do it!" as a running gag in Sandler's films The Waterboy, Little Nicky, 50 First Dates, The Longest Yard, and Bedtime Stories, as well as in a deleted scene from Click. (A sample of Schneider saying the phrase also turns up in the song "Original Prankster" by The Offspring.) Returning the favor, Sandler appeared in a cameo to spout the same line in Schneider's The Animal, wherein, as a reference, Adam Sandler utters: "Yeah! You can do it!" Sandler also showed up briefly in Schneider's The Hot Chick. Schneider narrated Sandler's 2002 animated movie Eight Crazy Nights, and voiced the part of a Chinese waiter. Schneider also had an uncredited cameo as a Canadian-Japanese wedding-chapel minister in the 2007 Sandler-Kevin James comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, and played a Palestinian cab driver who serves as the title character's nemesis in the 2008 Sandler film You Don't Mess with the Zohan.
Schneider played a variety of roles in the 2005 TV special Back to Norm, starring another former SNL player Norm Macdonald, and appeared on episodes of the popular TV shows Seinfeld and Ally McBeal. Schneider hosted the Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit '97 TV special, and the 2005 Teen Choice Awards, and is a frequent guest on NBC's late-night variety program The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. (In Schneider's appearance with Leno on the July 24, 2007 episode of The Tonight Show, he showed up in drag as actress Lindsay Lohan after Lohan cancelled following a controversial arrest for driving under the influence.
Besides his efforts in movies and television, Schneider released his first comedy album Registered Offender in July 2010. Registered Offender is composed of audio sketches and songs, with Schneider himself doing all of the character voices on the recording. He also revived his stand-up comedy career in 2010 with an international tour of theaters, clubs and casinos.
Schneider appeared in the music video for country singer Neal McCoy's "Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On", as the song's title character. McCoy and Schneider met while the two went on a USO tour in support of U.S. troops two months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Schneider starred as the title character in the CBS-TV situation comedy Rob, which was loosely based on his real life. The series was canceled by CBS in May 2012. In 2015, he produced, directed and starred in Real Rob, a sitcom mini-series following his life and including his real-life wife Patricia and daughter Miranda. The series was released on Netflix and ran for 8 episodes.
Schneider is the official celebrity spokesperson for the Taiwan Tourism Bureau and the Ten Ren Tea company in Taipei.
In May 2016, Schneider was featured as a special guest on the Let's Play webseries Game Grumps, commentating over Midway's Mortal Kombat Trilogy.
A 2005 New York Times editorial admonished, "Watch Rob Schneider play Ula, a leering Hawaiian in the Adam Sandler movie 50 First Dates, with a pidgin accent by way of Cheech and Chong, and you get the sense that Hollywood still believes that there is no ethnic caricature a white actor can't improve upon." In a letter to the editor, Schneider defended himself by asserting his Filipino heritage, adding that he believes that "Hollywood should give roles to the most talented person irrespective of ethnicity, race or in my case 'looks'."
Schneider supports Mexican football team Tigres UANL.
Schneider has a daughter with former model London King, musician Elle King who was born in 1989.
In 1996, Schneider established the Rob Schneider Music Foundation. The foundation returned music education to Pacifica's elementary schools by paying the teachers' salaries and providing funds for instruments and other equipment. Prior to Schneider's efforts, the school system did not have music education programs for many years.
Schneider once co-owned the DNA Lounge, a San Francisco nightclub.
Schneider's mother has made cameo appearances in his films: she played a cheerleading contest judge in The Hot Chick, a restaurant patron in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, and a nosy neighbor in The Animal.
On April 23, 2011, Schneider married television producer Patricia Azarcoya Arce, in Beverly Hills, California. Their first child, Miranda Scarlett Schneider, was born in 2012.
In 2013, Schneider announced that he would no longer support the Democratic Party, citing California's heavy regulations and calling the state's economy "a disaster". He became a member of the Republican Party and endorsed assemblyman Tim Donnelly for governor.
Schneider is an outspoken critic of vaccination practices, even going so far as to liken California Bill AB 2109, which would require the informed consent of parents before opting for a philosophical exemption to vaccinations, to the Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany. In September, 2014, State Farm Insurance pulled a television commercial featuring Schneider after a social media campaign urged the company to end its affiliation with him.
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1990 | Martians Go Home | Voyeur Martian | |
1991 | Necessary Roughness | Chuck Neiderman | |
1992 | Home Alone 2: Lost in New York | Cedric the Bellhop | |
1993 | Surf Ninjas | Iggy | |
1993 | Demolition Man | Erwin | Uncredited |
1993 | Beverly Hillbillies, TheThe Beverly Hillbillies | Woodrow Tyler | |
1995 | Judge Dredd | Fergie, Herman Ferguson | |
1996 | Down Periscope | Lt. Martin Pascal | |
1996 | Adventures of Pinocchio, TheThe Adventures of Pinocchio | Volpe | |
1998 | Knock Off | Tommy Hendricks | |
1998 | Susan's Plan | Steve | |
1998 | Waterboy, TheThe Waterboy | Townie | |
1999 | Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo | Deuce Bigalow | |
1999 | Big Daddy | Nazo | |
1999 | Muppets from Space | TV Producer | |
2000 | Little Nicky | The Townie | |
2001 | Animal, TheThe Animal | Marvin Mange | |
2002 | Mr. Deeds | Nazo, the Italian Delivery Man | |
2002 | Eight Crazy Nights | Chinese Waiter & Narrator | |
2002 | Hot Chick, TheThe Hot Chick | Clive/Jessica | |
2004 | 50 First Dates | Ula | |
2004 | Around the World in 80 Days | Hobo | |
2005 | Longest Yard, TheThe Longest Yard | Punky | |
2005 | Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo | Deuce Bigalow | |
2006 | Grandma's Boy | Yuri | |
2006 | Benchwarmers, TheThe Benchwarmers | Gus | |
2006 | Click | Prince Habeeboo | Uncredited |
2006 | Shark Bait | Nerissa | Voice |
2006 | Little Man | Dinosaur Rex | Uncredited |
2007 | I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry | Asian Minister | Uncredited |
2007 | Big Stan | Stan Minton | Director |
2008 | American Crude | Bill | |
2008 | You Don't Mess with the Zohan | Salim | |
2008 | Bedtime Stories | Indian Horse Seller / Scammer | Cameo role (uncredited) |
2009 | Wild Cherry | Father of High School Girl | |
2009 | American Virgin | Ed Curtzman | |
2010 | Grown Ups | Rob Hilliard | |
2010 | The Chosen One | Paul Zadzik | Director |
2011 | You May Not Kiss the Bride | Ernesto | |
2011 | Top Cat: The Movie | Lou Strickland | U.S. dub Voice |
2012 | Noah's Ark: The New Beginning | Zed | Voice |
2012 | The Outback | Johnny | Voice |
2012 | Wings | Dodo | Voice |
2012 | The Reef 2: High Tide | Nerissa | Voice |
2012 | Dino Time | Dodger | Voice |
2013 | The Little Penguin Pororo's Racing Adventure | Toto | |
2013 | InAPPropriate Comedy | Psychologist / J. D. | |
2013 | Frog Kingdom | ||
2014 | Jungle Shuffle | Chuy | Voice |
2014 | Shelby | Shelby | Voice |
2014 | Wings: Sky Force Heroes | Fred | Voice |
2015 | Back to the Jurassic | Dodger | Voice |
2015 | OMG, I'm a Robot! | Robo Joseph | |
2015 | Pups United | Benny | |
2015 | The Ridiculous 6 | Ramon | |
2016 | Norm of the North | Norm | Voice |
2016 | The Adventures of Panda Warrior | Patrick | Voice |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2016 | Game Grumps | Himself | 1 episode |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1997 | A Fork in the Tale | Delivery Guy | Voice |
Charities
Rob Schneider supports the following charitable causes: Children, Environment, Animals, Disaster Relief.