Ryan Dillon

Ryan Dillon (born May 25, 1988) is an American puppeteer who has played Elmo since 2013. Dillon had previously worked as an ensemble muppeteer for the Jim Henson Company since 2005. Dillon also played Cooper Monster for the interactive series Sesame Street TV for Xbox Kinect, and appears on all 4 seasons of the new CBeebies and Sesame Street co-production, The Furchester Hotel, as Elmo.

In 2017, Dillon was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming.

Background and career
Dillon was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a young puppeteer, Dillon came to the attention of Sesame Street producers when he went to an audition as a high school student. He took time off from school during his senior year to participate in the shooting for Season 37 in 2005. Since 2013, he has taken over performing Elmo in new productions and appearances, replacing Kevin Clash after his resignation from Sesame Street in 2012. Ryan has also taught classes in television puppetry at Penn State and various schools and centers in the United States.

In addition to playing Elmo, Dillon has appeared on Kraft MilkBite commercials, "Healthy Teeth, Healthy Me," "Little Children, Big Challenges," "Little Discoverers: Big Fun With Science, Math and More," Julie's Greenroom, The Muppets Take the Bowl, the Nickelodeon webseries "Ask Sylvia" as the title character, and John Tartaglia's ImaginOcean (2010)

In 2017, he makes special appearance as Elmo on Team Yey!