What a career year for Boyle, Co. Roscommon native Chris O’Dowd. The 32-year-old may have found stardom relatively late, but he’s sure making up for time as witnessed by the Hollywood bidding war for his services that ended last week with a contract for a new comedy series that he’ll write and produce.

NBC beat out the other three major networks, CBS, ABC and Fox, for O’Dowd’s show Big Men, which centers on three guys who meet at a weight loss clinic. NBC signed the deal with something known as a “significant penalty,” which basically means that O’Dowd’s getting paid whether or not the show sees the light of day.

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Next year is shaping up to be an even bigger one for O’Dowd than 2011. He’s got two films in the can, a Judd Apatow feature called This Is Forty that also stars pistol-hot Melissa McCarthy (his co-star in last summer’s breakout hit Bridesmaids), Megan Fox and Jason Segel, and Friends With Kids which co-stars Jon Hamm, Fox and Kristen Wiig.

Below, check out Chris O'Dowd talking about his time filming the hit 'Bridesmaids':