Zachary Wolfe Galligan was born on February 14, 1964 in New York City, New York. His mother was a psychologist and his father was a lawyer who also was a founding partner of the law firm of Dickstein Shapiro. He grew up on the Upper West Side and went to The Collegiate School. During his Junior year of HS he was approached and asked to audition for the film Taps. He went to the audition and didn’t land the role but did land himself an agent that day.
After graduating HS in 1982, he began attending Columbia University while also auditioning for film roles.
In 1984 he landed his debut role in “Nothing Lasts Forever”, a film with Bill Murray. The film ended up getting shelved and never seeing the light of day. Later that year he starred in his second film (but debut film to the public), “Gremlins”, a role he beat out Kevin Bacon, Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson for. The film turned out to be his big break, becoming a massive commercial and cultural success and becoming the third highest grossing film of 1984.
During that time Galligan was asked to audition for the lead role in “Back to the Future”. He would have had to fly out to LA to audition and meet with people etc. His parents objected to this because he was in the middle of classes at Columbia and they felt he wasn’t taking school serious enough. They wanted him to focus on school more so he can have a stead career one day if acting doesn’t work out and were strong believers in the importance of higher education. He obliged and decided to send in a videotape audition. He never heard back from the casting. He knew not being able to audition in person blew his chances.
In 1985, he played the doomed teenager Rick Brogan in Surviving, an acclaimed TV movie that featured Ellen Burstyn and Marsha Mason (as well as a young River Phoenix), and landed him on the cover of People magazine with co-star Molly Ringwald.
1986 brought his Broadway debut, replacing Matthew Broderick in Neil Simon’s Tony winning play Biloxi Blues.
In 1988, he fully dropped out of Columbia and he moved to Los Angeles. He starred as Mark Loftmore in the horror comedy Waxwork.
In 1990 he reprised his role in “Gremlins 2” as well as his role in “Waxwork 2”. Gremlins 2 did poorly at the box office, leading Hollywood to stop offering Galligan roles. He spent the next decade hoping (in vain) for another big break. “My days involved waiting for an audition, working out at the gym and partying,” he recalls. “I had a blast in the 90’s, perhaps too much fun, and maybe I should have worked a lot harder and partied a lot less, but I definitely don’t regret the 12 years I spent living out in LA.” He worked in straight to VHS films or low budget B films for years after Gremlins 2 failed.
In 1996, 14 years after starting his college career, and 14 years of aborted semesters, missed classes and multiple relocations, Zach moved back to NYC and graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in History.
In 2002, Zach returned to his theater roots with the comedy Doing Judy at the Alcazar Theater in San Francisco, and on screen has played a Brooklyn sleazoid on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, a hack playwright in Let Them Chirp Awhile (2008), and a New Orleans sheriff in Hatchet 3 (2013). In early 2021, Galligan appeared in a Mountain Dew commercial in which his Gremlins character, Billy, gives Gizmo a drink of his Mountain Dew, and will play a role in the new Gremlins animated series being made.
He works as an acting teacher for years.
