BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 17: Matt Walsh (L) and Alejandro Montoya Marin (R) attend the Los Angeles premiere of “The Unexpecteds” at the Fine Arts Theatre on September 17, 2025 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Paul Archuleta/Getty Images)
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Actor and Chicago comedy legend Matt Walsh returned to his hometown on an
“off week” for sports, the first weekend of October. The Chicago Bears had just come off a two-game win streak and bounced back after starting the NFL season 0-2. That same weekend, the Cubs beat the San Diego Padres in the National League Wildcard Series to advance further into the postseason.
While in town promoting his new film, Walsh joked that both the Chicago Bears and Chicago Cubs would win their respective world championships. But he also said that he’s all-in for Chicago teams, no matter how the season might end.
“I’m not a baseball diehard, but I’m on the Cubs bandwagon,” Walsh said to me just before the first of two screenings of his new movie, The Unexpecteds. “As a sports fan, my first love is the Chicago Bears.”
As it turned out, this past weekend, the Cubs failed to beat their division rivals, the Milwaukee Brewers, which prevented Walsh from seeing his hometown team take on the Dodgers in Los Angeles, where he now lives. But at least Walsh, a dedicated Chicago Bears fan, still has football.
“It was great to see the Bears take two in a row. Hopefully they’re on a roll,” Walsh said of the Bears’ win over the Raiders in Las Vegas, during NFL Week 4.
The day before the first screening of The Unexpecteds, Walsh dropped in at 670 The Score to talk about the city’s favorite local pastimes with Matt Spiegel and Laurence Holmes on Spiegel & Holmes, WSCR-AM’s mid-afternoon show.
Walsh was joined by the action comedy film’s director, Alejandro Montoya Marín, and fellow actor and producer Alejandro “Alex” De Hoyos, to talk sports and entertainment.
When I caught up with Walsh on Zoom a week later, he spoke first about Chicago sports and the fact that he made the 5-hour drive from his home in Los Angeles to Las Vegas to see his Bears take on the Las Vegas Raiders.
“I had a blast there, and I drove up with my boys to attend the game,” Walsh said. “My sons came out with me, also just to see Vegas.”
During that game on September 28, the Bears came back from a 14-9 deficit at halftime, scoring nine points in the 4th quarter, to put the score at 25-24 before the final play. And not only that—the Bears won by blocking the Raiders’ last-second field goal attempt to nab the win.
When I asked Walsh his reaction to the Bears’ win, he reacted in typical Chicago sports fan style: “Oh my God, it was incredible. It was so exciting, so many people were there, and everyone was cheering and singing in the tunnel (out), celebrating after the game.”
“I like and support both Chicago baseball teams,” Walsh said. “I was nervous for the Cubs throughout the series, and even when they had a (NLDS Game 4) 5-0 lead,” Walsh added, while joking, “but baseball’s too intellectual for me. I tried playing fantasy baseball before, but got a little lost. I like a good sport that is played once a week, like football.”
That said, Walsh reveled like any good Chicago sports fan when the Cubs won the World Series.
“I remember in ’16, I had a lot of Chicago friends who flew in, so I was living vicariously through them,” said Walsh. In October 2016, the Cubs faced a beat the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, en route to the World Series, which the Cubs also won. “I listened and watched and celebrated just like anyone else.”
Walsh noted that there are dozens of actors and writers in L.A. who were longtime Chicago residents, especially from the comedy community. Walsh, who cut his comedy teeth at Chicago’s Annoyance Theater and other local improv venues, said that when Chicago pro teams are in contention, the city’s sports haunts come alive with talent from the Windy City.
“The Blackhawks, when they won three championships during the Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, and Andrew Shaw era, I watched all of those games,” Walsh recalled. “There’s a big Chicago contingent here in Los Angeles, with all of us gathering for every Hawks game.”
The Chicago “us” Walsh referred to, he said, consists of actors who include Brad Morris, Joe Nunez, Horatio Sanz, Ike Barinholtz, Ron Livingston, as well as Lecy Goranson, among others.
While in Chicago, Walsh attended both screenings of The Unexpecteds, which ran on Saturday, Oct. 4, at Malcolm X College, near downtown, and Sunday, Oct. 5, at The Davis Theater, in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood.
Directed by Alejandro Montoya Marín and executive-produced by Kevin Smith, The Unexpecteds is released today, on Apple TV.
Matt Walsh, pictured (left) with sports radio host Matt Spiegel, and on-air with Spiegel & Holmes, on WSCR-AM, aka 670 The Score.
photo by Ian Perez
Chicago comedy legend, sports aficionado
Over the past two decades, Walsh has had a successful career in acting and comedy, with roles in such hit movies as Flamin Hot, The Hangover, I Love You, Man, and Old School, not to mention his starring role as Mike McLintock on the HBO original series Veep, which ran for seven seasons from 2012 to 2017.
He’s also been a frequent guest star in nearly 200 different TV shows, along with roles in The Conners, Manhunt, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Ghosts, and the most recent episode of Beavis and Butt-Head.
Despite his active schedule, Walsh makes time to come home to Chicago for visits with family and friends, as well as for Chicago sporting events.
“I’m one of seven, so there’s a lot of family demands, as I have four siblings and my mom there,” in the Chicago suburbs, Walsh said. “But I always try to make it a point to get downtown to a Bears or Hawks game.”
Yesterday, October 13, was Walsh’s 61st birthday. I couldn’t help but text him to ask if he was watching the Bears play on ESPN’s Monday Night Football. He responded, “I sure am.”
During last night’s game, the Bears eked out another 25-24 win over the Washington Commanders, to improve their record to 3-2.
Walsh also said during last week’s interview that another favorite thing to do while in Chicago is to perform improv comedy with friends and former comedy colleagues.
“I came out of the Annoyance (Theater) originally, but if I can get into the city, I will do some improv at iO (Theater), which is kind of my home there.”
In The Unexpecteds, Walsh plays a middle-aged corporate drone named Gary who, with three other friends, loses his life savings to a social media swindler named Metal Mike. After enlisting a seasoned intelligence agent named Felipe, played by De Hoyos, the group goes after the con artist and his entire enterprise with guns, ammo, and martial arts moves.
The film has been generating buzz thanks to its screenings in Chicago, plus Austin and Laredo, Texas, as well as its star-studded film premiere in L.A. two weeks ago.
Smith, who is best known for his own indie classic pictures, which include Dogma, Chasing Amy, and the Clerks film series, signed on as executive producer this summer, after the film won “Best Comedy” at Smith’s own Smodcastle Film Festival last fall.
Chelsea Rendon, Alejandro De Hoyos, Matt Walsh, and Francisco Ramos plan their heist in “The Unexpecteds.”
photo courtesy of Alta California Pictures
Montoya Marín, the director and screenwriter of The Unexpecteds, sang Walsh’s praises.
“It’s been an honor because Matt Walsh is not just incredibly talented, but has paved and done so much for the comedy scene in Hollywood,” Montoya Marín said this week. “He’s also a great guy and down to earth.”
During last Sunday’s screening in Chicago, some cast members of the film, including De Hoyos and Chelsea Rendon, spoke to the crowd after the film and elaborated on how much the cast got along and how easy filming The Unexpecteds went.
Montoya Marín added: “I get to call Matt a friend first, and then a collaborator because he’s a true artist, and surrounds himself with really good people, and you could tell that everyone who works with him is always in a good mood.”