Biography
One of the true workaholics in his field, funnyman Steve Byrne spent ten years grafting away on the comedy circuit before breaking through to the mainstream with a series of Comedy Central specials and the prime-time sitcom he also helped to create, "Sullivan & Son" (TBS, 2012-14). Born in Freehold, NJ in 1974 to a Korean mother and Irish father, Byrne first developed a love of stand-up comedy while working as a part-time reservationist at New York's Caroline's during his theatre studies course at Kent State University. Inspired by the routines he heard in between sweeping floors and answering calls, Byrne decided to make the leap onto the stage himself at an open mic night at Stand Up New York in 1997 and never looked back. Byrne spent the best part of the next decade working seven nights a week in a bid to gain as much experience as possible, including one particular evening that was captured on film for the documentary "13 or Bust" (2006), in which he performed at 13 different Manhattan clubs. After making his TV debut on "Premium Blend" (Comedy Central, 1997-2005), Byrne went onto make occasional guest appearances on various talk shows including "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" (ABC, 2003-), "Last Call with Carson Daly" (NBC, 2002-) and "The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn" (CBS, 1999-2004) before victory on cutthroat competition "Standup or Sitdown Comedy Challenge" (TBS, 2006) took his career onto another level. In the same year, he landed his very own "Comedy Central Presents" (Comedy Central, 2004-2011) stand-up special, and following several appearances on hidden camera show "The Real Wedding Crashers" (NBC, 2007), he followed it up with the hour-long special, "Steve Byrne's Happy Hour" (Comedy Central, 2008). Byrne continued to tour relentlessly, becoming a regular at the likes of the Just for Laughs Festival, HBO's US Comedy Arts Festival and Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Tour, and also made his first big-screen appearance with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it part as a dancer in festive comedy "Four Christmases" (2008). Similarly minor roles in "The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard" (2009), "Couples Retreat" (2009) and "The Dilemma" (2011) then followed, as did a one-off part in "The Middle" (ABC, 2009-), but it was his own prime-time sitcom that truly launched Byrne into the mainstream. Based on the premise of a corporate lawyer, played by Byrne, who leaves his high-flying job in the city to take over his parents' downtown bar, "Sullivan & Son" (TBS, 2012-14) received mixed reviews but steady ratings in its first season and went onto become one of its home network's most-watched summer shows. In 2014, Byrne reprised his role of CFO Ben in the film adaptation of comedic coming-of-age webseries "Ktown Cowboys" and took to the New York stage to film the hour-long stand-up special, "Champion" (Netflix, 2014).
