Gourley was born in Whittier, California on May 23, 1973. He grew up near Richard Nixon's childhood home.
Gourley has acted in, directed, and worked on the technical side of productions in the Los Angeles area since the early 1990s, including as Curly in Of Mice and Men, Antipholus in The Comedy of Errors, Dogberry's henchman in Much Ado About Nothing, Orville in The Doctor In Spite of Himself, Hal in Loot, Brindsley in Black Comedy, the Director of Tooth and Nail at the Little Fish Theatre, and as a set/lighting designer on The Complete Works of william Shakespeare (abridged). Gourley did video work and set design for multiple productions of Fellowship!.
In 1997, Gourley won a contest to see who could best imitate the sound of a flushing toilet.
In 2006, Gourley and Carter launched Superego, an improvisational podcast they conceived of on Christmas Eve 2005 based on the conceit of clinical case studies. Superego has since added Mark McConville, Jeff Crocker, and Paul F. Tompkins as regular cast members.
In September 2013, Gourley started hosting a podcast along with Matt Mira titled James Bonding on the Nerdist network. The podcast discusses the James Bond films one by one with guests. In November 2014, Gourley helped launch the new Wolfpop podcast network, a sister to Earwolf, along with Paul Scheer and Adam Sachs. As part of this launch, Gourley himself began a new podcast titled I Was There Too which focuses on the actors and stories behind the most classic scenes from film and television. Gourley also co-hosted The Andy Daly Podcast Pilot Project on Earwolf with Andy Daly.
Gourley's best known commercial work is his position as a spokesperson for Volkswagen in 2014 and 2015. He has also appeared in ads for McDonald's, Carlton Draught, Lowe's, Hewlett-Packard, Hyundai, Xbox, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and Budweiser.
