Desi Lydic
Desi Lydic is an American comedian and actress who is a senior correspondent and rotating host on the late-night talk and news satire program The Daily Show. She has won three Emmy Awards: one as a host of The Daily Show, and two as the host and producer of the short form YouTube series The Daily Show: Desi Lydic Foxsplains From 2011 to 2016, she starred as guidance counselor Valerie Marks on the MTV comedy-drama series Awkward.
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Lydic got her start in the 2001 parody film Not Another Teen Movie. She also starred in the Spike miniseries Invasion Iowa alongside William Shatner, and the parody series The Real Wedding Crashers.
She appeared as Shea Seger in the 2011 film We Bought a Zoo alongside Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, and in the 2013 film The Babymakers with Olivia Munn. Lydic appeared as one half of a lesbian couple on an episode of the Disney Channel series Good Luck Charlie in 2014. She joined Trevor Noah's lineup of correspondents for The Daily Show on September 29, 2015. Lydic was among a number of guest hosts of The Daily Show after the departure of Trevor Noah.
Early life
Desi Lydic was born in 1981 in Louisville, Kentucky. At the age of three, she became interested in comedic acting by watching Carol Burnett play Miss Agatha Hannigan in Annie. As a child, she enrolled in the Young Actors Institute at the Youth [Performing Arts School] in Louisville and starred in a Kroger commercial.After she graduated from Eastern [High School (Louisville, Kentucky)|Eastern High School] in the city, she attended the University of Louisville for two semesters before deciding to make the biggest move of her life to that point. When she told her parents about her plans to move to Los Angeles she was not sure what to expect. “I think they saw this creative side in me growing up,” she said. “I'm so fortunate because a lot of people don't have families that would've supported them in making such a huge decision like that. But not only did they give me their blessing, my mom and dad packed up a U-Haul and drove us out all the way across the country.” She told Kyle Meredith in a 2024 interview that it was during this time that she had an obsession with late '90s Saturday Night Live. She later moved to Los Angeles and became an improvisational actor, performing at The Groundlings and Improv Olympic. At the time iO had a branch in Los Angeles. It opened in 1997 and closed in 2018.