Chris Colfer

Christopher Paul Colfer, born May 27, 1990, in Clovis, California, is an American actor, singer, and author whose public life began in the bright, high-emotion world of television musical comedy. He gained international recognition as Kurt Hummel on Fox’s Glee, which ran from 2009 to 2015. Kurt, a fashionable gay countertenor bullied at school for his sexuality and for belonging to the unpopular Glee Club, became Colfer’s first television role and the role that brought him to a global audience.

Colfer had auditioned for the part of Artie Abrams, but creator Ryan Murphy was so impressed that he created Kurt specifically for him. The character drew at times from Colfer’s own experiences. In a 2010 interview, Colfer said he had told Murphy about things that had happened to him, and those details sometimes found their way into the show. His performance earned major recognition, including the 2011 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film, two Primetime Emmy nominations, a Grammy nomination, and three consecutive People’s Choice Awards for Favorite Comedic TV Actor from 2013 to 2015. In April 2011, he was named to the Time 100 list of the world’s most influential people.

Long before Glee, Colfer was drawn to performance and storytelling as forms of escape and entertainment. As a child, he spent three months confined to a hospital bed after lymph node surgery, an experience he later credited with deepening his interest in fictional worlds. When he was seven, his younger sister was diagnosed with severe epilepsy, and much of his parents’ attention went to her health. Colfer knew he wanted to act, but he also retreated into imagination and began writing fairy tales. He has said he was “born wanting to be a storyteller.” His grandmother became his first editor, encouraging him when he tried, in elementary school, to write a fairy-tale-inspired novel that would later grow into The Land of Stories.

School also shaped him. Colfer was bullied so severely in middle school that he was homeschooled for part of seventh grade and all of eighth grade. At Clovis East High School, he found outlets in speech and debate, drama club, FFA, the Writer’s Club, the school literary magazine, and Destination ImagiNation. As a senior, he wrote, starred in, and directed Shirley Todd, a gender-reversed spoof of Sweeney Todd. One of his real school experiences later became a subplot for Kurt on Glee, after teachers denied him the chance to sing “Defying Gravity” because it is traditionally sung by a woman.

Colfer carried that mix of performance, humor, hurt, and fantasy into work beyond television. He wrote, starred in, produced, and novelized his first film, Struck by Lightning, which debuted at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. He also became a bestselling children’s author with The Land of Stories series, beginning with The Wishing Spell, released in 2012. The book reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for Children’s Chapter Books, and the follow-up, The Enchantress Returns, also became a best seller. As of September 2025, he has published twenty-one books. His words still resonate because they speak plainly to young readers and viewers who know what it feels like to be underestimated. “Be brave. Courage is one thing no one can take away from you” fits the life and work he has shared on the page and on screen.