Andy Nyman

Born in Leicester in 1966, the British actor, writer, director is best known for co-creating and starring in the stage play and subsequent film adaptation of Ghost Stories. He also gave an Olivier Award-nominated performance as Tevye in the Menier Chocolate Factory production of Fiddler on the Roof.

Training at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Nyman’s appeared in films since the start of the millennium, including noteworthy performances in Dead Babies and portraying a freedom fighter during World War Two in Uprising. However, his breakout film role came in 2006, when he starred in Shut Up and Shoot Me, a black comedy where he took the Best Actor award at the Cherbourg-Octeville Festival of Irish & British Film. Recently, he’s starred in the Judy Garland biopic Judy as Dan, also lending his voice to the Minions in animated films including Minions and Despicable Me 3.

As well as a writer and actor, Nyman is also one of the country’s finest magicians and illusionists. He’s worked with Derren Brown on his televised and West End productions, co-writing and co-directing four of Brown’s stage shows including Enigma and Something Wicked This Way Comes, winnng an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment in 2006.

Nyman is also the co-creator of Ghost Stories, a horror play which received its world premiere at the Liverpool Playhouse in 2010. Subsequently transferring to the Lyric Hammersmith, the play’s eventual West End transfer came in the same year, playing over 1,000 performances at the Duke of York's Theatre and ending its run in 2015. After its stage success, Ghost Stories was adapted for the silver screen in 2017, with Nyman starring as Professor Phillip Goodman in a cast that included Martin Freeman, Alex Lawther and Paul Whitehouse.

In 2019, audiences were spooked by the terrifying tales in Ghost Stories once more, as the play was performed at the Lyric Hammersmith and a West End transfer at the Ambassadors Theatre, with the cast including Nyman’s son, Preston.

Nyman’s notable stage credits include Syd in the West End transfer of Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen in a cast including Johnny Flynn and David Morrissey, as well as a London revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins at the Menier Chocolate Factory. But in 2018, Nyman returned to the Menier to star as leading patriarch Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Trevor Nunn. The sell-out production eventually transferred to the Playhouse Theatre, receiving eight Olivier Award nominations and Nyman earning an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.