Darren Criss

Star of Fox’s award-winning show Glee, actor and singer Darren Criss was born February 5, 1987 in San Francisco, Calif.

Criss majored in theater before graduating from the University of Michigan in 2009. Prior to graduating, he and his friends wrote and produced A Very Potter Musical, which they released on YouTube. This made Criss a YouTube sensation, and a year later he landed the role on Glee of Blaine Anderson, an openly-gay student from a rival glee club at Dalton Academy.

In his first appearance on the show, Criss sang Katy Perry‘s “Teenage Dream,” which became the first song from Glee to debut at No. 1 on Billboard. The song sold more than 200,000 tracks in its first week.

He played the lead role of J. Pierrepont Finch in Broadway’s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in 2012. He also appears in the film Imogene, costarring Kristen Wiig, Annette Bening and Matt Dillon.