Nigel Riley

Nigel Riley was born in December 1979 in Nambour, Queensland, Australia to Gay & Owen Riley, who were both primary school teachers. He was joined three years later by his younger brother, who is now a nurse. With his mother also a singer and director, and his father a playwright and composer, there was no surprise when his passion was to perform. Moving to Brisbane to study a Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Drama, Nigel worked in the local theatre scene scoring the title role in a production of Macbeth; playing Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing; and the lead role of Nick in This Way Up. He is also very proud of his portrayals of "Taff" Evans, the Welshman on Robert Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in Terra Nova, and Harold "Mitch" Mitchell in A Streetcar Named Desire. Always looking for his next opportunity, Nigel took up an on-air position with River 94.9FM; acted in a collection of commercials and short films; and was co-anchor and a producer for the eXtreme TV Show on Foxtel which lead to being asked to present at the Antenna Awards. He was then credited as an AIF Soldier in the ABC documentary Kokoda, and cast as Dr. Paul Vanderland in the Animal Planet series Your Worst Animal Nightmares. In 2018 Nigel successfully auditioned for the role of Benjamin Billings in the "vegemite western" film Blackwater, which premiered in 2019 and was released on streaming services in 2021. Nigel's hobbies span everything from performing weddings as an Authorised Marriage Celebrant to his love of martial arts. He briefly studied Kung Fu, Muay Thai, Boxing, MMA, and Brazilian Jui Jitsu, settling on kickboxing to work toward his first fight. This brought him to get the job as a "Fitness Guru" with In30 which describes itself as "the anti-fitness app" and can be found on both App Store and Google Play. Nigel is based in Brisbane and is happily outnumbered by his wife, Danielle, and two daughters.