I mean, other than streaming and TCM and Mad Men and Louie?
Yeah, probably.
Like everyone else, I first saw him on The Office, but since he was introduced at the ebb of that show's greatness, it wasn't until 2013 or so that I looked up from whatever I was working on and said, who is this guy? He's in everything right now.
It happens a lot, some actor will suddenly start getting a lot of bit parts, so you see Rachel's date show up as Paul and Jamie's waiter a couple weeks later and a grieving husband on Law and Order a month after that, or what have you. But Zach Woods wasn't just suddenly showing up everywhere. He was suddenly showing up on a lot of medium-to-very awesome shows, and he was killing it.
He's the NSA kid on The Good Wife, first monitoring Alicia's phone calls and then going to her for legal help; I can't find any clips, because that's what I'm saying, Zach Woods isn't even famous enough yet for there to be a shitload of youtube clips of his TV appearances. I'm going to keep saying his full name in the hopes of changing that, see.
It's a classic Good Wife setup, combining the show's interest in unusual legal venues or aspects of law with the ongoing problem of Peter Florick's past and possibly present corruption. The Good Wife deserves a post of its own, because it has the most amazing stable of character actors filling out its recurring roles as judges and opposing counsel, but Zach Woods' casting here fits in perfectly with that.
In contrast he's underused on Veep as Anna Chlumsky's occasionally seen boyfriend, but just being on Veep is kind of an accomplishment given that he's a regular on Silicon Valley, which is paired with it on HBO. I can't embed either of the Silicon Valley clips I was debating between, but that's a good excuse to link to both of them:
Jared versus the driverless car
Very interested, somewhat interested, not interested. Which one? Which one?
Look, if you haven't seen the show -- which was kind of uneven until the finale, but which has a fantastic cast that also includes T.J. Miller, one of my favorite comic actors -- these clips are funny enough on their own, but even funnier in context.
But that's not all! No! Zach Woods ALSO plays Zach Harper on the criminally underrated Playing House, starring real-life BFFs Lennon Parham and Jessica St Clair, with Zach playing Lennon's brother.
This is one of those weird moments in someone's career where part of you hopes they never make it big, because I want to keep seeing Zach Woods in a million different things, you know? Not just in his one highly paid starring role. At the same time, you also want him to succeed enough that he keeps getting cast in everything. Some of us call this the Jere Burns Conundrum.
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