Overview (3)

Mini Bio (1)

Spouse (1)

Trade Mark (1)

Has a remarkable ability to alter his appearance and voice, making each of his characters completely unique



Trivia (24)

Guest became the 5th Baron Haden-Guest, of Saling in the County of Essex, when his father died in 1996.





Older brother of actor Nicholas Guest , who is heir presumptive to the family title. (As Christopher's children are adopted, they cannot inherit the barony).



Has two adopted children: daughter Annie Guest (born in December 1986) and son Thomas Guest (born in March 1996). Under the terms of the letters patent that created the Barony of Haden-Guest, they cannot inherit the title, but they can use the courtesy title of the Honourable before their first names.



His idol growing up was comedian Peter Sellers



When a publicity photo of Guest and his co-stars from Die Jungs von Spinal Tap (1984) ran in Rolling Stone magazine, Jamie Lee Curtis saw the picture, fell in love and gave her phone number to Guest's agent. They dated and eventually married.

Guest shoots 10-minute scenes to let the improvisations unfold organically and ends up with about 60 hours of film, which is then edited down over a year and a half to 90 minutes.



Christopher's father, Peter Haden-Guest, was a British hereditary lord, an actor, and a dancer, who ended up a UN diplomat. Christopher's father's family was a mix of English, Dutch Jewish, German Jewish, and Scottish ancestry (including distant American-born ancestors). Christopher's mother, Jean Pauline (Hindes), was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants.



In 2005, announced his intention to stop making mockumentary films, because he doesn't find them funny anymore.



Lived in New York in the 1960s.





Was the muse for an Asian-American short comedic film entitled Pax Importi Modellus: The Rise of the Import Model (2004), which has gained international attention.

Christopher dropped the Haden from his surname when he started going to acting auditions in his 20s; he thought it sounded long-winded and distracting.



Attended the House of Lords regularly until the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999 barred most hereditary peers from their seats.





He has been a skilled guitarist since the 1960s and has displayed his talents in both Spinal Tap projects and A Mighty Wind (2003). He actually became acquainted with frequent co-stars and on-screen band mates Michael McKean and Harry Shearer at music venues before the three decided to make a career as comedic actors.



When he went to pick up his Tesla car with wife Jamie Lee Curtis , the technician instructed them to check out the air conditioning and audio controls, each of which maxed out at "11." Apparently Tesla CEO Elon Musk was a huge fan of the film Die Jungs von Spinal Tap (1984) and had the controls exclusively customized for the couple.



During an interview with his wife Jamie Lee Curtis , on The Graham Norton Show (2007), she mentions that he drives a Tesla with both the volume and Air Con dials going all the way up to 11.



Was introduced to his future wife, Jamie Lee Curtis , by her Halloween II co-star, Leo Rossi, at a mutual celebrity softball league.



Alumnus of Stella Adler Studio of Acting.

Personal Quotes (15)



No. I don't talk about the family. This is kind of an on-going thing that gets, honestly, to be kind of tiresome, only because, you know, you meet people in Boston and they say, 'Boy, what's it like to wake up with Jamie Lee Curtis ?' Well, you know what? We've been married for 12 years, and we have kids, and it's not like we're living some bizarre life here. We go home and we wear sweatpants and the baby takes a dump and we change the diaper. I don't mean to put you off here, but I just tend not to talk about it.

Comedy is like music. You have to know the key and you have to find players with good chops.



People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case. I rarely joke unless I'm in front of a camera. It's not what I am in real life. It's what I do for a living.





I spent more time in America, but I developed a very English sense of humour. I clicked into it deeply with Peter Sellers , who is still probably my favourite comedian. I loved The Goons and then I got into "Beyond the Fringe" and by accident I met Jonathan Miller and those guys. And, of course, they led straight to [Monty] Python.

"Silliness framed in intelligence. Even when it's stupid, you know intelligent people are doing it and that makes it a different joke. Stupid comedy over here [in America] is just plain stupid. It's moronic and I don't find it funny at all." - when asked to define the tradition of English humor.



"It's real acting, in a sense. You're reacting spontaneously to things you've never heard before. You can either do it or not, and if you're with a bunch of people who can, there's nothing more fun." - on improvised acting.





I liked directing The Big Picture (1989). I was happy with it, but I remembered working on "Spinal Tap" and what a joy it was to make and how much we made each other laugh.

The movies have a way of seeping out there over time. We don't put them in 2,000 theaters. It wouldn't work that way.



But I am interested in the notion that people can become so obsessed by their world that they lose sense and awareness of how they appear to other people. They're so earnest about it. But that's true of so many things.



I don't work with high-concept things that start with a premise, "Wouldn't it be funny if there was this spy who met a ..." For me, it could be, "What about people who sell shoes? That must be a bizarre world ... when they meet at conventions and talk about shoes."



On being banned (as a hereditary peer) from the House of Lords: There's no question that the old system was unfair. I mean, why should you be born to this? But now it's all just sheer cronyism. The Prime Minister can put in whoever he wants and bus them in to vote. The Upper House should be an elected body, it's that simple.



[on people-watching and eavesdropping] I love airport lounges. Los Angeles is a bad place for me, because there's so little street life or public space. The good places are New York, London and Paris, where behavior is out in the open. Basically, my whole job is to look at people in public and watch the way they behave and listen to them talk.



[on those few years he sat in the House of Lords] It wasn't the cartoon of old men with ear trumpets. Although yes, there was an old man with an ear trumpet. But it wasn't Downton Abbey and the Roller, none of that. Most of these people had no money. They didn't have the country houses. They were regular people who had regular jobs. They were well informed, and lending their expertise. And the speeches were amazing, so I'm glad that I went.



People who are good at comic improvisation also tend to be musical; I don't know why, but the two talents often go together.



In real life, people fumble their words. They repeat themselves and stare blankly off into space and don't listen properly to what other people are saying. I find that kind of speech fascinating but screenwriters never write dialogue like that because it doesn't look good on the page. It looks like they don't know how to write dialogue.

