Childhood & Early Life
Charles Day was born on February 9, 1976, in New York City, to Dr. Thomas Charles Day, and Mary Day. His mother taught piano at The Pennfield School in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and his father is a retired professor of music history at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island.
While His mother has English, Irish, and Welsh ancestry, his father is of Irish and Italian descent. Charles grew up in Middletown, Rhode Island. His elder sister, Alice, has a Ph.D. in music, making him the only family member without a degree in music.
At the age of three, he started to learn playing the violin, and later learnt the piano, trombone, and guitar-harmonica combo as well.
While he was in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, he went to Pennfield School, and graduated from the Portsmouth Abbey School, where he was a member of the baseball team, playing shortstop for the Ravens.
In 1998, he graduated from Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts, with a bachelor's degree. While he was at Merrimack College, he played baseball for the Warriors baseball team.
He also joined the Onstagers, Merrimack's student theater organization, and actively took part in the training programs at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Initially, he earned his living by waiting tables and answering phones for a telethon, which sold Motown anthology.
Continue Reading Below
Career
In 2001, Charlie Day was featured in an episode of ‘Law & Order’, an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf. It was a popular series, credited to be the longest-running crime drama on American primetime television.
He also appeared in the television crime series ‘Third Watch’, created by John Wells and Edward Allen Bernero which aired for six seasons on NBC till May 2005.
In 2004, he starred as Inbred Twin in the ‘Not Without My Mustache’ episode of ‘Reno 911!’, a comedy television series on Comedy Central.
In 2005, Charlie and his friends, the struggling actors Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton, shot a pilot with a budget of $200. FX television picked up the comedy pilot, and turned it into ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’, which was about the exploits of ‘The Gang’, a group of self-centered friends who run the Irish bar Paddy's Pub in South Philadelphia.
With the ninth season, the series moved to FXX. Besides playing Charlie Kelly in the popular show, Day was also the executive producer and the writer of the show, along with Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton. He also wrote and improvised some of the songs and music featured in the show.
After tasting success in the television series, Charlie Day ventured into films, appearing in ‘Love Thy Neighbor’ in 2005 and ‘A Quiet Little Marriage’ in 2008.
In 2010, he was featured in the romantic comedy ‘Going the Distance’, his first major feature film role, in which he played the best friend and roommate of Justin Long’s character, Garrett.
In 2011, he was cast in the popular black comedy film ‘Horrible Bosses’, directed by Seth Gordon. It was the story of three friends, played by Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis, who decide to murder their abusive bosses.
He was a producer for the 2011 sitcom ‘How to Be a Gentleman’, that was originally aired on CBS from September 2011 to June 2012. He also produced ‘Unsupervised’, an animated sitcom aired on FX from January to December 2012.
Continue Reading Below
In 2013, he lent his voice to the character Art in the Pixar animated film ‘Monsters University’. In the same year, he appeared in the science fiction monster film ‘Pacific Rim’, directed by Guillermo del Toro. Day is set to reprise his role in the Pacific Rim sequel.
In 2014, he was cast in ‘Horrible Bosses 2’, the sequel to the 2011 hit comedy film ‘Horrible Bosses’. Jennifer Aniston, who played a sex-addicted dentist, was his co-star. The sequel also starred Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis.
In 2015, Day voiced Benny in ‘Lego Dimensions’, an action-adventure video game developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Warner Bros. That year, he played Chad in the comedy film ‘Vacation’, written and directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.
In 2016, he once again lent his voice to the character Benny in the short-attraction film ‘The Lego Movie: 4D - A New Adventure.’ In the same year, he played Jason in the comedy film ‘The Hollars,’ directed by John Krasinski.
Charlie Day played Andrew ‘Andy’ Campbell in the 2017 comedy film ‘Fist Fight’ directed by Richie Keen. Next, he played Ralph in the comedy drama ‘I Love You, Daddy,’ written and directed by Louis C.K.
In 2017, he appeared in the ‘Pacific Rim’ sequel titled ‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’. It proved to be a massive hit and also got a standing ovation when it was premiered at New York Comic Con on June 10, 2017, with fans screaming with excitement.
Personal Life
Charlie Day met actress Mary Elizabeth Ellis in December 2001, at New York City’s KGB Bar. In fact, he arm-wrestled a friend who was also interested in Ellis and won, thus getting the chance to talk to her first. He dated Ellis for five years before they got engaged. In 2004, while he was dating her, they were cast as incestuous siblings on ‘Reno 911!’
Day and Ellis married on March 4, 2006, at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, soon after Hurricane Katrina. Their son Russell Wallace Day was born on December 15, 2011.
In 2014, Charles received an honorary doctorate in performing arts from Merrimack College.
