The bestJason Mantzoukasmovies and TV shows include mostly geek-friendly genre offerings, with several comic book, sci-fi, and fantasy properties under his belt. In what should come as no surprise to anyone who follows Mantzoukas and his acting career, he started off as a stand-up improv comedian. He first wrote sketches in his junior and senior years of high school and then joined the Upright Citizens Brigade in 1998, where he learned under Amy Poehler.
That helped him get theinside track on a guest role on Poehler’s sitcomParks and Recreation, but his true breakout came when he nabbed a role inThe League, where he was one of the main stars through that sitcom’s run. Since that time, he has mostly taken on supporting roles, with standoutperformances in TV shows likeBrooklyn Nine-NineandPercy Jackson and the Olympians, as well as major voice roles in shows likeBig MouthandStar Trek: Prodigy.
He only had a small amount of screen time in the Peacock streaming seriesTwisted Metal, but Jason Mantzoukas left a lasting impression on fans. In this series, Anthony Mackie (Captain America: Brave New World) stars as John Doe, a delivery driver with amnesia who ends up driving into the world based on the classic road racing combat video game. In the post-apocalyptic wasteland, he meets several deadly and deranged people, including Mantzoukas' the Preacher.
The Preacher is the leader of the Holy Men, a group of people who follow him and will do anything he asks of them. When his followers bring him John Doe’s car as a gift, John shows up to fight him for it and loses. However, they have a final battle that ends up in an explosive moment where the car explodes, knocking the Preacher out of action. There was a scene at the end of the first season that hinted that The Preacher would return in season 2, butMantzoukas said scheduling conflicts ruined that possibility.
Jason Mantzoukas playedDennis Feinstein onParks and Recreationin the third and fourth seasonsof the popular NBC sitcom. Dennis is a fragrance maker who lives in Pawnee and believes he is more important than most other people in the town. He is very quirky and arrogant, and it was later learned that he changed his name from Dante Fiero to Dennis Feinstein because he felt it sounded more erotic. He is also very cruel, and loves to mess with people’s minds and treat them terribly in front of others.
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Like most characters in the popular sitcom, Dennis is very quirky and has some bizarre fascinations. He actually has foxes imported from Russia that he drugs and then sets free to hunt. He also, at one point, said he loves to hunt humans as well (whom he pays for the thrill of the sport). Dennis' last appearance was in season 4, but he was one of the characters who returned for theParks and Recreationreunion special.
One of Jason Mantzoukas' early roles came in the television sitcomThe League. The series aired on FX and was asemi-improvised comedy about the members of a fantasy football league. Set in Chicago, the show follows these friends as they will do anything to win, while also pulling pranks on each other and dealing with the after effects of these actions. The series starred Nick Kroll (who createdBig Mouth) and filmmaker Mark Duplass, while Manztzoukas played Rafi.
Rafi’s storylines were always pushing the boundaries of decency. He is Sofia’s (Nadine Velazquez) brother, and she is married to Kroll’s Rodney Ruxin. Most of the characters see Rafi as annoying, and he does so many bad and questionable things in his life that this might be Mantzoukas' most deranged role. Following his family’s death, Rafi actually underwent a lobotomy that saw him return as a very different person.
Jason Mantzoukasjoined theStar Trekfranchise in 2022 by taking on the role of Jankom Pogin the animatedStar Trek: Prodigy.In this Pararmount+ series, a group of young aliens in the 24th century find an abandoned starship calledProtostarand learn about Starfleet. The series was aimed at targeting younger audiences and ended up getting canceled by Paramount+ and removed from the service, only for Netflix to pick it up and release a sequel season.
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The series tied into the mainlineStar Trekseries by bringing in Admiral Kathryn Janeaway fromStar Trek Voyagerto see the young aliens serve under her as they search for the original missing crew of theProtostar. Jankom Pog is an argumentative teenage Tellarite who handles repair duties and knows a little more than others since he was born years before but was in a long-range sleeper ship. The series won a Children’s and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation - Production Design.
Jason Mantzoukas had a small but memorable role on the Disney+ adaptation of Rick Riordan’s young adult novelPercy Jackson & The Olympians.The book series was originally made into two movies, but so many changes were made from the source material that it ended up washing out, and Disney decided to start over with the TV series. What resulted was a highly entertaining and faithful adaptation of the books with a great cast and some fun action and special effects.
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Mantzoukas stars as the god Dionysusand was mostly just there to act exasperated and mess around with Percy (and the other gods) every chance he got. Since Dionysus was not involved in the action and road trip scenes, he was just there at Camp Half-Blood to serve as mostly comedy relief, and he was one of the most memorable side characters in those scenes. A second season arrives in 2025 based onThe Sea of Monsters, and there is high hope that Mantzoukas has an even bigger role this time around.
It might have been easy to miss Jason Mantzoukas when he appeared in the thirdJohn Wickmovie. This film barely stopped its action as John was globetrotting and avoiding assassins while trying to find a way to save his life and get the hit against him called off.Mantzoukas starred in this movie as Tick Tock Man.He was a spy who worked for the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) and was a man posing as a harmless street person whom no one paid attention to but was there to bring John to safety.
Tick Tock Man was one of the few members of the Bowery King’s group who survived the attack and massacre of the Soup Kitchen by assassins sent by Zero (Mark Dacascos). He is also notable as the person who retrieved John Wick after he was shot and fell from the rooftops into an alley. Tick Tock Man pushed John in a shopping cart to the Bowery King to begin his rehabilitation and revival to finally finish things. While only a small supporting character, Mantzoukas' character played an important role in his appearances.
Jason Mantzoukas was one of the main stars on the fantasy television seriesThe Good Place. Kristen Bell leads the show as Eleanor Shellstrop, a woman who lived a less than desirable life who dies and ends up in Heaven, where she meets the afterlife architect Michael (Ted Danson). She knows she does not deserve to go to Heaven with the life she has lived, but she wants to stay in the Good Place rather than go to the Bad Place (Hell), so she hides her past by acting like a better person.
Another person in the Good Place with her is Janet (D’Arcy Carden), a programmed guide who provides the residents with whatever they need. When Janet develops unrequited feelings for Jason (Manny Jacinto),Eleanor suggests Janet create a new boyfriend, and this is Derek, a malfunctioning artificial rebound boyfriend played by Mantzoukas. He gets rebooted several times throughoutThe Good Place, allowing him to be the focus of a lot of humor and jokes on the critically acclaimed comedy.
Big Mouthis a story about adolescence told from the point of view of middle school students who learn more about puberty and their changing bodies through their own Hormone Monsters. The main two characters are Nick and Andrew, voiced by the show’s co-creator Nick Kroll and actor John Mulaney. Created by Kroll and Andrew Goldberg, the series is an R-rated tale that allowed the two men to describe what it was like growing up with all these weird feelings that could only be explained by monsters speaking in their ears.
However, one of the other main characters was a boy namedJay Bilzerian, a teenage boy who is obsessed with both magic and sex, and who seems to have a lot more experience than the other kids (although his main sex activity is with his pillow). Jason Mantzoukas voices Jay inBig Mouth, and he remains one of the most important characters throughout the show’s run. On top of Jay, Mantzoukas also voices Jay’s father, Guy, and the ghost of Socrates.
Easily one of Jason Mantzoukas’s best roles came on the police sitcomBrooklyn Nine-Nine. Mantzoukas' Adrian Pimentowas a loose-cannon detective who had been undercover for 12 yearsbefore he came back into the open and was very much on edge the entire time. The character first appeared in the third season episode, titled “Adrian Pimento,” and he caused a lot of problems, with Jake unable to really understand what the man is all about and how to act around him.
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Always paranoid and often lashing out at others, Adrian soon explained the horrific things that he had to do to keep his cover in the mob. This makes most of the officers scared of him, but he soon becomes close friends with Jake, and this helps him come down a little bit and even leads to a romantic (yet complicated) relationship with Rosa that, thankfully, ends before they tie the knot. He only appeared in 11 episodes, but he was always a highlight and was even in the two-part series finale.
While he has only appeared in 21 total episodes, Jason Mantzoukas voices one of the most important and beloved side characters inInvincible. This is an Amazon Prime Video adult animated series about a teenage superhero who has taken his role as one of Earth’s mightiest superheroes after he learned his father was an alien sent to prepare the planet for an invasion.Mantzoukas voices one of Invincible’s main allies, Rex Splode.
Rex Splode is a member of the superhero group Guardians of the Globe, a younger version of the group that Invincible’s dad murdered when he began to set the invasion into motion. After the tragic events of the second season, Rex Splode became one of Invincible’s closest allies, buttheInvincibleseason 3 season created a tragic ending for Rex Plode,and it proved why he might be the best-written and most important character thatJason Mantzoukashas ever played.
