Dax Randall Shepard (born January 2, 1975) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker and podcaster. Since 2018, he has hosted Armchair Expert, a podcast that interviews celebrities, journalists, and academics about their lives.
Shepard has appeared in the feature films Without a Paddle (2004), Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005), Employee of the Month (2006), Idiocracy (2006), Let's Go to Prison (2006), Hit and Run (2012), and CHiPs (2017), the last two of which he also wrote and directed. Shepard portrayed Crosby Braverman in the NBC comedy-drama series Parenthood from 2010 to 2015. He also played Luke Matthews in the Netflix show The Ranch, co-starred in ABC's Bless This Mess and acted in the MTV practical joke reality series Punk'd (2003).
He is also a co-founder of the diaper and baby product company Hello Bello with his wife, Kristen Bell.
Early life and education
Shepard was born in Milford Township, Michigan, in suburban Detroit. He is the son of Laura LaBo, who worked at General Motors (GM), and David Robert "Dave" Shepard Sr., who was a car salesman. His parents divorced when he was 3 years old.
Shepard's mother developed a substantial business by the time he was in high school. She worked car shows with traveling events at race tracks. She started as a janitor on the midnight shift at GM, then worked in fleet management at the GM proving grounds in Milford, Michigan, then hosted hospitality days for all the GM family members, eventually moving into public relations at an ad agency. She went back to GM, becoming the owner of four shops that managed publicity events for magazine journalists. From the age of 14 to 18, Shepard worked for his mother on the road, going from racetrack to racetrack. For about two years, Shepard had a stepfather who was an engineer on the Corvette. Shepard's mother has been married four times; Shepard said he's had three stepfathers.
According to Shepard, his mother named him for the rich playboy Dax (Diogenes Alejandro Xenos), in Harold Robbins' novel The Adventurers. He has an older brother, David Shepard Jr., who lives in Oregon, and a younger half-sister, Carly Hatter, whom he cast in two films: 2012's Hit and Run and 2017's CHiPs. He is also distantly related to George Washington, through marriage, on his mother's side.
Shepard has said that he was raised in Milford, although he lived in a lot of places in suburban Detroit, growing up primarily in Walled Lake, Michigan. Dax is dyslexic and said it inspired his acting career. He graduated from Walled Lake Central High School in 1993 before enrolling in The Groundlings school. After attending Santa Monica College and West Los Angeles College, Shepard transferred to UCLA, where he graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in anthropology. He had a deal with his mother that if he went to college she would pay his rent.
