Scott Thompson

1959-06-12 · North Bay, Ontario, Canada

Scott Thompson (born June 12, 1959) is a Canadian television actor and comedian, best known for his time as a member of the comedy troupe Kids in the Hall and for playing Brian on The Larry Sanders Show. Thompson was born in North Bay, Ontario and grew up in Brampton. Named for his uncle, he later dropped the name "John" to simplify his name for the stage. He is the second oldest of the five children in his family. He attended Brampton Centennial Secondary School, and was a witness to the 1975 Brampton Centennial Secondary School shooting. He enrolled at York University but in his third year was asked to leave for being "disruptive". He joined the comedy troupe The Love Cats, where he met Mark McKinney. In 1984, Thompson became a member of The Kids in the Hall, whose eponymous sketch comedy series aired starting 1989 on the CBC in Canada and on HBO in the United States, but moved to CBS for its fourth and fifth seasons. Openly gay, Thompson became best known on the show for his monologues as "alpha queen" socialite Buddy Cole, and his appearances as Queen Elizabeth II, secretary Cathy, businessman Danny Husk, suburban housewife Fran, actress Francesca Fiore, and the demented old man in the popular "Love and Sausages" sketch. Concurrently with The Kids in the Hall, Thompson and his writing colleague Paul Bellini collaborated in a queercore punk band called Mouth Congress. During the mid-1990s Thompson ran an interactive website, developed by his younger brother Craig and called ScottLand. It had a live-chat area, voting and comedy espionage and sold Buddy Cole T-shirts and video tapes of comedy sketches. He also appeared regularly on The Larry Sanders Show as Hank Kingsley's personal assistant Brian, and made numerous guest appearances on other television series, including Politically Incorrect, The Late Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and Train 48. Thompson hosted a reality television program in Canada called My Fabulous Gay Wedding. Thompson defended Mordecai Richler's novel Cocksure in Canada Reads 2006. He has continued to tour, and act in numerous movies and on TV. He joined the other Kids in the Hall to tour as recently as 2014, guest-starred in two episodes of Reno 911!, and performed in the project Death Comes to Town (2010) with fellow KITH members Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Kevin McDonald. He had a recurring role in the NBC series Hannibal, playing Jimmy Price, an FBI crime scene investigator.