Nelson Leis
☼ Born on 29 December (year unknown), in Kemptville, Ontario, Canada
Biography
Nelson Leis is an actor and writer, perhaps best known for his role as Beelzebub in 3 seasons of the hit Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018). Other high profile projects he's acted in include HBO's The Last of Us (2023), 20th Century Studios' Prey (2022) and FX's Shōgun (2024). He wrote, produced and starred in the award winning comedy A.T.A.C.K. (2022). He has worked alongside some of Hollywood's most recognizable talent: Pedro Pascal, Kiernan Shipka, Kevin Bacon in Story of a Girl (2017) directed by Kyra Sedgwick, Steve Zahn in Valley of the Boom (2019), Rainn Wilson in Backstrom (2015), Freddy Highmore in Bates Motel (2013) and Joel Kinnamen in The Killing (2011). Nelson will next be seen in the horror film Big Baby.
Nelson was born in Kemptville, Ontario to a French mother and Estonian father, and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. The acting spark was ignited when Leis became involved in high school and community theater, eventually leading him to move to New York City and study at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After theatre school he returned to Vancouver and spent a year as part of an education-based theatre tour aimed at high school kids. Nelson helped write this project, which continues to run in British Columbia schools more than 25 years later.
As a writer, Leis co-created the web series The Jim (2010) which won multiple awards at the 2011 L.A. Web Fest, including Best Actor for Nelson, and the top prize which brought the creative tea
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m to France for the inaugural Marseilles Web Fest. This was a meaningful event for Nelson as it took him to his mother's homeland for the first time.
On stage Nelson has starred in Lobby Hero, The Toyer, Closer, Lone Star, Take Me Out, The Big Funk, Soldier's Heart and Almost, Maine.
Along with Vanessa Walsh, Nelson is a partner in First Glance Productions which has multiple projects in development.
In the role of actor
Prey (13/08/2022)
A lone Comanche woman faces off against an alien Predator in Prey. In 1719 in the Great Plains, Naru (Amber Midthunder) is a young Comanche woman who desires to be a hunter, despite having been trained by her tribe as a healer. Naru decides to accompany her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) to locate an injured […]
The Prey (20/07/2019)
An undercover Chinese detective is placed in a Cambodian prison, where the corrupt warden hires men to hunt down the prisoners in The Prey. Xin (Gu Shangwei) is an undercover Chinese detective in Cambodia, who is arrested an placed in a prison run by a brutal warden (Vithaya Pansringarm). Xin is one of many prisoners […]