Nicholas Hope (born 1959) is a British-born Australian actor, director, and teacher of acting. He became known for his performance as the lead role in the 1993 film Bad Boy Bubby, for which he won several awards.
Nicholas Hope was born in 1959 in Manchester, England. His family emigrated to the steel and shipbuilding town of Whyalla in South Australia, where he grew up.
In 2010, he earned a PhD in performance studies at the University of Sydney.
Hope's first foray into live performance was as a bass player in a variety of rock bands in the 1970s and 1980s.
He started his acting career on stage, working in many productions for the State Theatre Company of South Australia. He starred in a short film, and then got his big break when he played the lead role of Bubby in 1993 cult crime comedy-drama film Bad Boy Bubby, written and directed by Rolf de Heer. The role won him several best actor accolades, at the Australian Film Institute Awards, the Venice Film Festival in 1993, and France's Valenciennes Film Festival in 1995.
In 1998, Hope was nominated for best supporting actor at the Amanda Awards for his performance in the Norwegian film ' (1998).
Subsequent film credits include The Goddess of 1967 (2000), alongside Rose Byrne; family film Scooby-Doo (2002), opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr.; The Night We Called It a Day (2003), with Joel Edgerton, Dennis Hopper and Melanie Griffith; creature thriller ' (2004); and Australian drama film Lost and Found (2005). Later films include The Daughter (2015), with Sam Neill and Geoffrey Rush; The School (2018); The Invisible Man (2020) alongside Elisabeth Moss and directed by Leigh Whannell; Moon Rock for Monday (2020) and The Drover's Wife (2021), opposite Leah Purcell.
He played lead roles in the 2012 films Redd Inc and Double Happiness Uranium. He received a Film Critics Circle of Australia nomination for best actor in a supporting role for his role as Joseph in Ivan Sen's 2023 film, Limbo.
Hope has also starred in numerous television series. He made early appearances in G.P., Blue Heelers, Farscape and Beastmaster. He starred in the award-winning 2001 miniseries Changi, as well as Gallipoli (2014) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018). His other television credits include Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Offspring, Janet King, Ash Vs Evil Dead, Operation Buffalo, The Twelve, The Secrets She Keeps, The Messenger, The Artful Dodger, Black Snow and Ten Pound Poms.
Hope is also a writer, director, and producer. He made his writer/director debut with the play Little Gods in 2013. The following year, he directed Four Places for Outhouse Theatre, and in 2015 he directed his own play Five Properties of Chainmale for Griffin Theatre Company. He directed the short film Like Gold (2017), and produced the 2019 short film The Reckoning of Christian Spencer.
In 2014, he was teacher of direction and acting for film, at the Sydney Film School, and was head of acting at the International Screen Academy, Sydney.
Hope recounted his experiences in the film industry â including his failure to secure main roles â in his 2004 memoir Brushing the Tip of Fame.
A portrait of Hope appears in the National Portrait Gallery.