Jemaine Clement

Nomination:

• Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series - Flight of the Conchords

With but a handful of TV and radio shows under his belt, Jemaine Clement became one of New Zealand’s highest-profile exports since “Lord of the Rings” visionary Peter Jackson. As the tall, dark, bespectacled half of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, Clement cemented his status as one of the most offbeat comics to cross over internationally. The “band,” which Clement and partner Bret McKenzie described as “New Zealand's fourth most popular digi-folk parodists,” became an unassuming comedy phenomenon for its R&B- and hip-hop-infused songs about mundane superfluities of love and robots taking over the world, and for its bone-dry, self-satirizing eponymous HBO series. Playing themselves as frumpy, barely functional losers doomed to musical obscurity by their own naiveté, Clement and McKenzie carved out a niche as actors, comedians, musicians, writers, and producers of their own show, as well as unofficial -- and self-consciously inept -- kiwi spokesmen. Born Jan. 10, 1974, in Masterton, a small city in the agrarian Wairarapa region of New Zealand, Clement grew up in a blue-collar family he described as a mixture of European and Maori (indigenous New Zealander) descent. He attended Makoura College before moving on to Victoria University of Wellington, where he met collaborator Bret McKenzie. The twosome began working on a musical act in 1998, initially as a four-piece band. Eventually they refined their act into a duo as Flight of the Conchords, putting together a repertoire of original songs they considered “weird” but audiences found hilarious. Talent spotters for HBO caught their act on the festival circuit in 2004, yielding a one-off special in 2005. “The Flight of the Conchords” series followed in June 2007.