Biography of Colin Mochrie

As the son of an airline maintenance executive, his family tended to move around quite frequently. They first moved to Montreal in 1964, then to Vancouver in 1969. He considered himself a loner during his childhood days due to his shyness, a trait that he claims he still evidently has, and the frequent moving. At some point, as a child, he had dreamed of becoming a marine biologist or a chef. However, at 16, he was dared by a friend to join a High School play where he had the part of an undertaker. It was then when he got his first laugh (by splitting his pants) and afterwards, he “craved for nothing but more laughter.” He then turned to Theatersports, where he attended an acting school for four years.

Introduced by a friend, he teamed up with Ryan Stiles to do improv, who at the time was doing stand up comedy. Shortly after doing Expo ‘86, Colin moved to Toronto. There, he auditioned for The Second City (a famous North American comedy theater), where Ryan Stiles was working at the time. He was hired by Debra McGrath. In 1989, he and Deb got married. They later had a son, Luke. Colin worked in The Second City for three years and the couple then moved to Los Angeles, where Deb worked on a TV series with Second City colleague, Linda Kash. They hated it there, and after spending their last few weeks selling off their CDs to buy diapers for their son, they moved back to Toronto.

Colin’s first appearance on Whose Line is it Anyway, the British version, was in 1991. He first auditioned for the show in 1990 in Toronto but didn’t make the cut; later in the year he tried again in Los Angeles and this time was successful.

His role on the American Whose Line got out to a similar rocky start when ABC, finally having being convinced to make an American version of Whose Line, wanted to drop Colin Mochrie because they thought the comedian looked too old (regardless of the fact he was only a little older than Ryan) and not hip enough. Thankfully those already involved in the show held their ground, and ABC was smart enough to see that talent and creativity were more important than ‘hip’ and the fans agreed, making Colin a popular mainstay on the American Whose Line stage.

Colin’s currently as busy as ever. He started the summer touring with the Improv Allstars, and into the fall will continue to travel with ‘An Evening with Brad Sherwood & Colin Mochrie’ performances. He’s also got an independent movie, Turnbuckle, premiering this fall, and two other projects (Those Guys & Summer Storm) in some stage of production. And as always, he can still be seen on Whose Line is it Anyway on ABC/ABC Family. With that and a family life too, he’s definitely a very busy man!