Ben Schwartz
Benjamin Joseph Schwartz (born September 15, 1981) is an American actor and comedian. He has guest starred as Jean-Ralphio Saperstein on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation and Clyde Oberholt on the Showtime series House of Lies; voiced Randy Cunningham in Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, Dewey Duck in DuckTales, and Leonardo in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; and appeared many times in the CollegeHumor web series Jake and Amir.
For other uses, see Benjamin Schwartz (disambiguation).
Ben Schwartz
- Actor
- comedian
2006–present
Schwartz voices Sonic the Hedgehog in the 2020 film of same name, and its sequels Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024). His film career also includes roles in Peep World;[1] Everybody's Fine; The Other Guys; The Walk; This Is Where I Leave You; Standing Up, Falling Down; and Flora & Ulysses. On television, he has starred in the Netflix comedy series Space Force (2020–2022) and the Apple TV+ murder mystery comedy series The Afterparty (2022–2023). He also voiced in the Netflix interactive special We Lost Our Human as Pud.[2]
Early life[edit]
Benjamin Joseph Schwartz[3] was born on September 15, 1981[4] in The Bronx, New York City, to a Jewish family.[3][5] His parents, both Bronx natives,[6] raised Schwartz in Riverdale, a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the Bronx. His father was a social worker before going into real estate[7] and his mother was a music teacher at P.S. 24, an elementary school in Riverdale.[8] He also has a sister named Marni.[9] In an interview with Kevin Pollak, he stated, "When I told people I was from the Bronx, it was like 'Oh, do you have bullet wounds?' And I'm like 'No, it's just me and, like, Jewish people.'"[7]
When he was eleven years old, his family moved to Edgemont, New York, in adjacent Westchester County.[7] Schwartz attended Edgemont Junior–Senior High School where he played basketball and sang in the chorus; he graduated in 1999.[10] He then attended Union College, graduating in 2003 with a double major in psychology and anthropology.[11]