Bridesmaids star Chris O’Dowd is on the verge of a major network breakthrough in America with his own comedy series.

NBC have commissioned the Irishman to write Big Men, a comedy based on a male weight-loss group and will make a decision next week on screening the pilot.

If commissioned, O’Dowd will be the executive director of Big Men. NBC beat three other networks as they won the bidding rights for O’Dowd’s recently written script.

The 32-year-old actor has also written a new comedy for Britain’s Sky network which NBC may consider for airing in the States.

Moone Boy is a series written by O’Dowd and based on his own upbringing in Roscommon.
If NBC decide next week to air the Big Men pilot, it will cap an incredible12 months for the rising star of the screen.

O’Dowd has just been nominated in three different categories – best actor, best supporting actor and rising star – at the Irish Film and Television Awards.

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He has also been nominated, by the public, at the British film and television awards and recently announced his engagement to television presenter Dawn Porter.

“It has been a very overwhelming couple of weeks I have had,” O’Dowd told the Irish Times. “I feel very, very lucky at the moment. It has all come at once.”

To cap it all, Bridesmaids was the highest-grossing film at the Irish box office last year with over $6million in takings.

“I knew it had done well, but to beat things like Harry Potter and all those huge budget films is incredible. I’d say it is very little to do with me. It’s a great film,” he added.

The Moone Boy project is also exciting the actor with the story loosely based on his childhood in the Roscommon town of Boyle.

“The people I have worked with on it have been on dozens and dozens of jobs but they have never felt the warmth and spirit coming at the production,” he said.

“People have been turning up on location with boxes of Roses and barbers have been giving us the keys to their shops when they were on holidays so actors could wash their hair.”

The series is to be broadcast on Sky 1 television in June.

Here's a Sky 1 clip promoting "The Moone Boy":