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Christopher John O'Neill grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, the son of Rich and Karen O'Neill. His father is a multi-instrumentalist and Juilliard School-educated pianist, and his mother is a middle school teacher. He also has one brother, Brian. While O'Neill took up music and performed in musicals and plays, he grew up wanting to be a soccer player, and by the end of high school he wanted to be a professional comedian.[2][3] O'Neill applied to several college theater programs, but owing to a lack of experience, was not accepted into any of them.[3]
Starting in 2000, O'Neill and Paul Valenti began collaborating as a sketch-comedy duo called The Chris and Paul Show. O'Neill described the duo's style as "stupid and abrupt"; it also involved physical comedy.[3][4] In 2003, shortly after O'Neill graduated high school, the pair moved to New York City, where O'Neill worked a series of retail and service jobs while Valenti found gigs for the duo to perform at. The Chris and Paul Show did receive some acclaim, with O'Neill receiving the Best Actor in a Comedy award from the New York Television Festival and the duo receiving Best Newcomer award at the 2011 Montreal Sketch Festival. They were also nominated for the same award at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which invited them to return in 2012.
While performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, O'Neill and Valenti were both spotted by a casting director for the musical The Book of Mormon. The two made it through several auditions in Los Angeles before O'Neill was invited to New York for a month-long training camp and extended audition. Over a dozen other people auditioned for the role of Elder Cunningham at the training camp, including Ben Platt and Cody Strand, who would be chosen to play the role in Chicago and on Broadway, respectively.[2][3][6]
O'Neill was selected to play Elder Cunningham for the first national tour, replacing original cast member Jared Gertner, who left the national tour for the soon-to-open West End production. He made his debut on December 28, 2012. The performance was also the national tour debut of Mark Evans, who replaced Gavin Creel (who also left for West End) as Elder Price.[7] The role was O'Neill's first in professional musical theater.[2][7] On January 6, 2015, O'Neill joined the Broadway cast of The Book of Mormon, with Gavin Creel joining the Broadway Cast as Elder Price the same night