Glenn Howerton: From Academic Pursuits to Comedic Stardom
Glenn Howerton, an American actor, writer, producer, and director, has carved a significant niche in the entertainment industry. He is best known for his roles as Dennis Reynolds in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, for which he is also a writer and executive producer, and Jack Griffin in A.P. Bio. His career reflects a blend of comedic timing, character development, and versatility.
Early Life and Education
Born Glenn Franklin Howerton III on April 13, 1976, in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, Howerton is the son of American parents Janice and Glenn Franklin Howerton Jr., a decorated fighter pilot. Due to his father’s military career, Howerton's upbringing involved frequent relocations. His family lived in Arizona, New Mexico, Felixstowe in England, Virginia, and South Korea before settling in Montgomery, Alabama.
Howerton graduated from Jefferson Davis High School in Montgomery. Before deciding to attend Juilliard, he was going to study Aerospace Engineering at Auburn University. He graduated with a B.F.A. in the Actor Training Program from Juilliard. This diverse background and education laid the foundation for his multifaceted career in entertainment.
Early Career
Howerton's acting career began with his role as Corey Howard in the 2002 sitcom That '80s Show. The series was short-lived, but it provided him with valuable industry experience. He guest-starred on ER as Dr. Nick Cooper in 2003. He had small roles in the films Must Love Dogs (2005), Serenity (2005), Two Weeks (2006), and The Strangers (2008).
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
In 2005, Howerton co-created and starred in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, portraying the narcissistic Dennis Reynolds. The show’s critical acclaim and dedicated fan base have solidified its status as one of television’s most enduring comedies. The series was co-created by Howerton alongside Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day, who all serve as producers, writers, and main cast members alongside Kaitlin Olson and Danny DeVito. As of season 14, he has also directed two episodes.
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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia stands as a cornerstone of Howerton’s career, with his portrayal of Dennis Reynolds earning him critical acclaim for his comedic timing and character development. The show has become a cultural phenomenon, influencing countless memes, fan theories, and discussions about its satirical approach to contemporary issues.
A.P. Bio
From 2018 to 2021, Howerton starred as Jack Griffin in the NBC/Peacock series A.P. Bio. In A.P. Bio, Howerton played Jack Griffin, an arrogant Harvard philosophy professor whose fall from grace had forced him to get a job teaching biology to high school students in his hometown of Toledo while plotting to exact revenge on his nemesis and restore his career. The show ran for two seasons on NBC before it was cancelled and then picked up by Peacock, NBC's streaming service, where it ran for another two seasons.
Allow me to be the first - and probably the last - writer to draw a comparison between NBC's new comedy A.P. Bio, premiering Thursday night, and Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread, which is nominated for best picture.
A.P. Bio stars Glenn Howerton (It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia) as Jack Griffin, a Harvard-educated philosopher who loses his gig and winds up back in his hometown of Toledo - as in much of pop culture, a retreat to the midwest represents humiliating defeat here - where he's assigned to teach Advanced Placement biology. (You have to kind of hum loudly and go along with this part, which posits that a high school desperate for recognition would hire someone with literally no science background to teach biology just because it says "Harvard" somewhere on his C.V., which wildly overstates the rarity of Harvard graduates and wildly understates educational bureaucracy.) The purpose of all this is to set up the premise that Jack is a jerk who goes out of his way to tell the kids this will not be one of those teachers who teaches them anything. He tells them to shut up and decides to use them for his own purposes - catfishing his hated rival, for instance.
A.P. Bio is basically a broadcast effort to follow the unlikable-person comedies like It's Always Sunny and You're The Worst and so forth. It feels very, very much like early Community, too, with Jack as its Jeff, an arrogant, over-it, disaffected guy rolling his eyes at the earnest pursuits of lesser humans. Only here, instead of friends who can push back, Jack has … high school students. And instead of just slacking, he wants to get, for instance, high school girls to catfish men he doesn't like. (Blergh.)
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Here's the thing: It's well done, in many respects. There's nothing wrong with the way Jack is written; he's got the right mix of exasperation, vile opportunism, and utter boredom for this setup. And outside of Jack himself, there's some very fine comedy. Niecy Nash, one of the most reliable comic actors who can be added to any ensemble, eventually shows up, and she's on fire from her first moments. So is Paula Pell, a longtime Saturday Night Live writer who I'm always happy to see on screen. And Patton Oswalt is funny - and not overused - as a try-hard principal who's sort of a sadder version of Jim Rash's dean from, again, Community. The show is executed pretty well, but I don't really want to watch it. I don't want another "that's just him," or "he's keeping it real," or "love or hate him, you can't stop watching him!" story. I actually can stop watching him. I choose to stop watching him, despite the fact that the show has achieved its potential and done what it set out to do - quite well, actually.
Context, after all, has profoundly affected what shows are ever made. The context of who has power and who doesn't affects why Lorne Michaels - an executive producer here - has almost taken over the NBC comedy brand. It affects what opportunities Mike O'Brien, the SNL cast member who created A.P. Bio, has, and what opportunities Paula Pell has. Not to mention what opportunities Niecy Nash has. Context is in play on the creation side, and it is in play on the reception side, too. It's impossible, I think, for our cultural vision to have been clearer when real things that really happened were kept secret.
Classroom comedies are always with us. From “Our Miss Brooks” back in the Golden Age, to “Welcome Back, Kotter” in the 1970s, to current series “Teachers” on TV Land and “Those Who Can’t” on TruTV, the business of imparting knowledge, and keeping kids off the street, has always been good for a laugh.
They don’t always fly: “Bad Teacher” lasted three episodes on CBS in 2014, “Mr. Robinson” just twice that a year later. But that won’t stop them coming.
Created by Mike O’Brien, and produced by Seth Meyers and “Late Night” producer Mike Shoemaker, the new “A.P. Bio” stars Glenn Howerton of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” He plays a self-described “award-winning philosophy scholar” who finds himself living in Toledo in his “dead mother’s apartment,” sometimes wearing her bathrobe, and teaching advance placement biology at a local high school. It also marks the return of the Lorne Michaels/”Saturday Night Live” alumni comedy machine to NBC’s Thursday lineup.
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The series - which has the dark whimsy of that brand - gets a preview airing Thursday before returning for an “official” premiere March 1, on the far side of the Winter Olympics. That break is unfortunate, as what can feel a little tired in the pilot - this is not exactly new ground - is freshened by later episodes (I have seen four) and the arrival of great guest players, including Paula Pell as the school nurse, Niecy Nash as a union representative and Mark Proksch as a teacher suspended for tickling.
“My name’s Jack Griffin, and I don’t want to be here,” Howerton’s character tells his expectant class, a collection of self-selecting nerds, weirdos and overachievers. Indeed, there’s no way to account for his hiring - having taught at Harvard is not as much of a recommendation as is suggested here - especially given that Jack is internet famous for a video titled “Old dude handles slightly less old dude” that ends with the declaration “Tenure Fail!” But we accept the premise in order to proceed. It’s a Bill Murray part, basically. … But Howerton, abrasive at first, tolerably abrasive later on, finds some original things to do with it. That the show lives in a world in which there are sentimental movies and television shows about students and teachers is made clear early on.
“This won’t be one of those things where over the course of a year I secretly teach it to you,” Jack tells his class, having declared his intention to teach no biology, or anything else. “This also won’t be one of those things where I end up learning more from you than you do from me.”
It’s a Bill Murray part, basically, of the sort Bill Murray has outgrown. But Howerton - abrasive at first, tolerably abrasive later on - finds some original things to do with it. In the real world, Jack would neither have nor be able to keep this job. What keeps Jack tolerable is that he’s a loser. and you will be out, trust me” - and manipulate Patton Oswalt’s exasperated, ineffectual Principal Durbin. (Jack: “You’re not the boss of me.” Durbin: “That’s literally my job description.”) He fumes helplessly over the success of a rival (Tom Bennett) who occupies the job he has in mind for himself plus and has a five-star review on Amazon, a genius grant and Lisa Loeb for a girlfriend.
As a combination of vocal bitterness and reluctant growth, he is somewhat analogous to Joel McHale’s Jeff Winger in “Community,” another comedy with an educational background. Jack is selfish, short-sighted and driven by impulse, with almost no sense of responsibility. (“Sunny in Philadelphia” fans may nod in recognition.) But in spite of his declaration to do no teaching, he will make common cause with a student, sometimes after trying to destroy them.
In the real world, Jack would neither have nor be able to keep this job - though, looking back, I did have some teachers whose continued employment was similarly mysterious. And some will find it tonally odd, or flat-out distasteful that a teacher would insult his students’ intelligence - by literally insulting their intelligence - or talk so much to them about his sex life, which is to say, his failure to have sex; he plans to “bang” his old high school girlfriend, he tells just about everyone. But he is so clearly pathetic that this comes off less creepy than it might.
Still, a joke like the following one does seem off in the context of a high school comedy (though of course, not all of the young actors are minors, if any are).
“Mr. Griffin, have you ever dated a single mom?”
“Yeah, one time, but she had a C section, so it was all good.”
Another student does comment, “You’re a bad person,” just to keep that straight.
The show is shot in creamy pastel colors, like the layout in a high-end lifestyle magazine, an unusual choice for this sort of thing. (Title typography reinforces the impression.) It gives the kids, many of whom have been cast for awkwardness or oddness, and who are all excellent, a kind of portrait-studio glamour.
Also on board are a trio of female teachers (Lyric Lewis, Mary Sohn and Jean Villepique), who will eventually get their own business to conduct, apart from what’s up with Jack. All sit so easily within their characters that it’s easy to picture “A.P. Bio” going on a while. Robinson’: If Bootsy Collins could give you detention More to Read Glenn Howerton as Jack in NBC's A.P. Glenn Howerton as Jack in NBC's A.P. Allow me to be the first - and probably the last - writer to draw a comparison between NBC's new comedy A.P. Bio, premiering Thursday night, and Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread, which is nominated for best picture. Phantom Thread is made beautifully. It's shot with luscious, almost leering passion. It makes fabric look more fluid than perhaps any film I can remember. The performances are perfect for what's intended. Where it fell down for me was in its tight focus on the particulars of a monstrous genius who, at least for much of the film, treats his own creative pursuits as the only thing worth protecting and relies on other people - primarily women - to give everything, tolerate everything, and ask for nothing. There's nothing to fault in the filmmaking itself, but we choose what stories to tell and what stories to read, and we always have. And right now, after spending three or four months reading horror stories about abuses of power, many by creative men who treated other people in just this way, it's hard for me to recommend that people fondle, for the billionth time, this particular piece of recurrent mythology, this fascination with toxicity as a growth medium for art. A.P. Bio stars Glenn Howerton (It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia) as Jack Griffin, a Harvard-educated philosopher who loses his gig and winds up back in his hometown of Toledo - as in much of pop culture, a retreat to the midwest represents humiliating defeat here - where he's assigned to teach Advanced Placement biology. (You have to kind of hum loudly and go along with this part, which posits that a high school desperate for recognition would hire someone with literally no science background to teach biology just because it says "Harvard" somewhere on his C.V., which wildly overstates the rarity of Harvard graduates and wildly understates educational bureaucracy.) The purpose of all this is to set up the premise that Jack is a jerk who goes out of his way to tell the kids this will not be one of those teachers who teaches them anything. He tells them to shut up and decides to use them for his own purposes - catfishing his hated rival, for instance. A.P. Bio is basically a broadcast effort to follow the unlikable-person comedies like It's Always Sunny and You're The Worst and so forth. It feels very, very much like early Community, too, with Jack as its Jeff, an arrogant, over-it, disaffected guy rolling his eyes at the earnest pursuits of lesser humans. Only here, instead of friends who can push back, Jack has … high school students. And instead of just slacking, he wants to get, for instance, high school girls to catfish men he doesn't like. (Blergh.) Here's the thing: It's well done, in many respects. There's nothing wrong with the way Jack is written; he's got the right mix of exasperation, vile opportunism, and utter boredom for this setup. And outside of Jack himself, there's some very fine comedy. Niecy Nash, one of the most reliable comic actors who can be added to any ensemble, eventually shows up, and she's on fire from her first moments. So is Paula Pell, a longtime Saturday Night Live writer who I'm always happy to see on screen. And Patton Oswalt is funny - and not overused - as a try-hard principal who's sort of a sadder version of Jim Rash's dean from, again, Community. The show is executed pretty well, but I don't really want to watch it. I don't want another "that's just him," or "he's keeping it real," or "love or hate him, you can't stop watching him!" story. I actually can stop watching him. I choose to stop watching him, despite the fact that the show has achieved its potential and done what it set out to do - quite well, actually. The idea that it's possible to consume art - whether it's classified as fine art or popular media - objectively is based on the idea that you can shut off the ways you are culturally grounded. It supposes that you can remove the filters of your experiences and your concerns and what you've seen represented and not represented, and what effects on the world around you the culture you live with has had. When I spoke about Phantom Thread and acknowledged that how engaging I found it was affected by the last few months of harassment and abuse allegations that have become public, one listener told me that my view was sadly "clouded" by those things. And you can argue my feelings about A.P. Bio are "clouded" by the fact that it's hard at this particular moment for me to enjoy laughing at an untouchable jackass abusing power over students. But how do you know what's clouded and what's cleared? Why is it more likely that only wanting so much of this story, of these lovable bastards, is clouded judgment, but embracing it up until now was clear judgment? How can knowing more about people's experiences make your vision less clear? Context, after all, has profoundly affected what shows are ever made. The context of who has power and who doesn't affects why Lorne Michaels - an executive producer here - has almost taken over the NBC comedy brand. It affects what opportunities Mike O'Brien, the SNL cast member who created A.P. Bio, has, and what opportunities Paula Pell has. Not to mention what opportunities Niecy Nash has. Context is in play on the creation side, and it is in play on the reception side, too. It's impossible, I think, for our cultural vision to have been clearer when real things that really happened were kept secret. What I think I owe as a critic is be able to say: the show is funny. The show isn't weirdly paced or inconsistent in tone. It's actually quite confident and sure-footed - if a bit derivative - and it sports some very good performances.
Other Notable Roles
Throughout his career, Howerton has diversified his portfolio with roles in films such as Crank (2006) and its sequel Crank: High Voltage (2009), as well as television appearances on The Mindy Project and Fargo. He played Cliff Gilbert on The Mindy Project (2012-2017) and Don Chumph on the first season of Fargo (2014). In addition to his television success, Howerton’s film work includes notable performances in The Strangers (2008) and Coffee Town (2013). He played the lead role in a film for the first time in 2013, when he landed the character of Will in the CollegeHumor comedy film Coffee Town with co-stars Steve Little and Ben Schwartz.
In 2023, Howerton garnered acclaim for his role as Jim Balsillie in the film BlackBerry. Glenn Howerton is dead serious about being funny.
Personal Life
Howerton married actress and dancer Jill Latiano on September 5, 2009. The couple has two sons: Miles Robert Howerton, born in 2011, and Isley Ray Howerton, born in 2014.
Current Ventures
As of 2025, Howerton continues to be a prominent figure in the entertainment industry. In addition to his acting endeavors, Howerton co-hosts The Always Sunny Podcast alongside co-creators Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day. The cast has been involved in charity-driven events, auctions, and fundraisers to support causes such as children’s healthcare, disaster relief, and social justice.
Kevin Bacon and Glenn Howerton Join Netflix Limited Dark Comedy Series Sirens. Howerton shows no signs of slowing down. With the continued success of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and his recent acclaim for dramatic roles such as in BlackBerry, he has proven his versatility as both an actor and a creator.
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