Biography

In a 2014 interview on the NPR interview program "Fresh Air with Terry Gross," O'Dowd told Gross that before he was an actor he worked at a call center, and one of his jobs was making solicitation calls for a well known wildlife charity. He said that the endangered animals that he was supposed to tell potential donors about--like New Guinean bats or newts from New Zealand--were unappealing to people, so he started making up fake endangered animals that he thought would be more attractive to them. One was a "tiger swan," which he described as "essentially a swan with the markings of a Bengal"; one was "some kind of flying dolphin".

Has a collection of over a thousand chocolate bar wrappers.

When he and Dawn Porter married, instead of taking his second name she simply attached an "O" to her name (O'Porter).

Met his wife Dawn at her 30th birthday party in Los Angeles in 2009.

As an Irishman, he says he felt an unexpected kinship with Aboriginals while making The Sapphires (2012).

[on not pitching his TV show Moone Boy (2012) to Ireland's national broadcaster RTE] A show like this is expensive. It just never came up. I don't think RTE even have a comedy department. I wouldn't know who the f**k to pitch it to.

[re his role in The Sapphires (2012) with Aboriginal girl singers] I was really surprised by how similar Aboriginals and Irish people are, like in their mentality, particularly coming from that time [1960s]... I think it's why the character as an Irish guy works quite well, because we're all part of the same team.

When I say I hate nostalgia, I hate things set in the recent past where everything is shiny and new.

A guy who's actually self destructive is quite fun to play.

After 'Bridesmaids,' women know who I am.