Christopher Daniel Lilley is an Australian comedian, actor, writer, director, producer, and musician. He also performs music. He is renowned for creating and playing a number of fictional characters in the web series Lunatics, Summer Heights High, Angry Boy, Jamie: Private School Girl, We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian of the Year, and the mockumentary television series We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian of the Year. He has won the Logie Award for Most Popular Actor thrice. The youngest of four children, Lilley was born in Turramurra on Sydney’s Upper North Shore. Chris was raised in Turramurra and went to Pymble Public School. He then attended Barker College and graduated from Macquarie University in Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts (majoring in contemporary music) and a Diploma of Education.
Chris received his diploma in 1997. He started his career in stand-up comedy in his twenties while concurrently working as a shop assistant and a childcare helper at Turramurra North Public School. In the comedic series Big Bite on the Seven Network, Lilley made his acting debut as Mr. G, the drama teacher at Summer Heights High, and as extreme sports enthusiast Extreme Darren. The 2003 Australian Film Institute Awards saw Big Bite, a comedy series from a commercial television network, nominated for Best Television Comedy Series, making it the first time a commercial television network has ever received a nomination for a category. It lost the race. Lilley was given joint credit with the producers, although the programme only ran for one season before being turned into a comedy/variety programme.
The show featured Lilley frequently, but it was cancelled after only a few episodes. In the parody Ned, which was based on the Australian bandit Ned Kelly, Lilley made an appearance. He made an appearance as the “MSN Butterfly” in a number of MSN television commercials and films. He has additionally made an appearance on the Hamish & Andy radio show. The Stafford Brothers, Rick Ross, and Jay Sean’s “When You Feel This” music video featured Lilley as the lead actor in 2015. In letters to HBO, numerous significant US civil rights organizations expressed their “grave concern” regarding Jonah from Tonga.
These organizations included the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, the NAACP, American Indians in Film and American Indians in Film and Television (which itself includes the Asian American Justice Center, Asian Pacific American Advocates, Japanese American Citizens League, Media Action Network for Asian Americans, the National Federation of Filipino American Associations, and more). In 2019, journalists once more accused Lilley of using blackface to portray the South African woman Jana Melhoopen-Jones in the lunatics. As this character is “obviously white,” it was later determined that this claim was false. Jonah from Tonga was taken down from BBC iPlayer’s internet streaming service in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Four of Lilley’s television programs were taken off Netflix’s streaming platform on June 11, 2020, also in response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and campaign. Following these incidents, Lilley frequently uploaded films to his YouTube channel that featured the Jonah character. In support of Lilley, Australian broadcaster Rowan Dean of Sky News claimed that political correctness was to blame for the censoring of Lilley’s series as well as other well-known shows like Little Britain.
Chris Lilley is an Australian comedian, producer of television, actor, musician, and writer with a $5 million fortune. From 2014 until 2016, Chris was romantically involved with DJ Milly Gattegno. In a PETA Australia starter kit regarding vegetarianism and veganism, Chris mentioned the following quote: “I was aware that eating animals was wrong even when I was just 5 years old.” I became a vegetarian, which is pretty much the only politically right decision I’ve ever made. After sharing a remix of the song “Squashed N****” on his Instagram page in 2017, Lilley came under fire. Chris shared the video a few days after a man was cleared of manslaughter in the killing of an Indigenous teenager called Elijah Doughty. It depicts Chris in blackface as the “Angry Boys” character S. mouse. (who was run over by the man in question). On social media, thousands expressed their outrage at the video, and Lilley ultimately decided to delete all of his accounts.
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