Paul E. Dinello (born November 28, 1962) is an American comedian, actor, and writer, best known for his collaborations with Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris.

[2] In 2017, he co-created the truTV craft-oriented comedy At Home with Amy Sedaris, which ran for three seasons, until it was cancelled in 2021.

[6] His uncle Dan Dinello, who piqued his interest in directing, is an independent filmmaker and professor emeritus at Columbia College Chicago.

Along with two other classmates, they later formed an improv group called, The Yardstick Boys, and would often perform around Chicago "for beer money".

"[16] When he and Sedaris were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left The Second City and moved to New York to work with them on the sketch comedy show Exit 57.

Although it lasted for only 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews[17][18] and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series.

Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson.

[20] Dinello served as a main writer with Sedaris and Colbert, and portrayed Jerri's naïve and self-centered art teacher, Geoffrey Jellineck, seen throughout the series not actually teaching anything to his classes.

Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience.

[29] That same year he had a bit part on Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, where he plays a copyright lawyer, alongside Sigourney Weaver.

Dinello is one of the people Colbert checks with to assess the quality of a piece, alongside Tom Purcell, Jon Stewart, and his wife Evie.

[33] Dinello has said his creative influences include comedians Ernie Kovacs, Buster Keaton, Peter Sellers, Monty Python, The Three Stooges, Jack Lemmon;[34][35] filmmakers Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Terry Gilliam, Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick; and photographers: Diane Arbus and Mary Ellen Mark.

[7][35] Dinello dated his Strangers with Candy co-star Amy Sedaris for eight years after they met at Second City.

[36] Dinello met his wife, photographer Danielle St. Laurent, while working on the artwork for the book Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People.