Biography

Justin began his career as a model for California surf brand Ocean Pacific and appeared in shows with the Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory and the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain. He attended Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach, CA and the Orange County High School of the Arts, where he was a student in the coveted musical theatre conservatory program. At 14, Justin auditioned and was cast as part of the ensemble in the Royal National Theatre's production of "An Enemy of the People" with Sir Ian McKellan. His audition piece was a poem by William Yeats, which he read with a British accent for director Trevor Nunn. The only U.S. engagement ran for six weeks in the summer of 1998 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. He made a return to the acting world in 2007 as the Finnish video gamer in a U.S. national TV ad campaign for Mountain Dew Game Fuel, directed by Craig Gillespie. Later that year, Justin decided to study political science at Saddleback College.

In the spring of 2026, Justin will be working on an episode of the upcoming HBO viral docuseries "Oobah." He's booked numerous commercial and print campaigns over the past year for big clients like Cisco Systems, BMC Software and Global Relay. Since 2025, Nickolas has played various lead and supporting characters in Claude Solnik’s developmental readings of "The Lifeguard" (as Mike the Lifeguard), "Cloud 9" (Rance) and "Heat" (Dzinas/Cop) with Theater for the New City. Mr. Solnik currently holds the position of in-house playwright at the Pulitzer Prize and Obie Award-winning Theater for the New City in New York. In June, he performed as Watt in "The Passion of Joan of Arc," a grand opera written and composed by John Partridge (Navona Records). The world premiere took place at the historic Sebastiani Theatre in Sonoma, California. In 2024, he made his television debut as Cody Myers in Oxygen's true-crime series Sin City Murders (2024) and as Detective Tim Brown in Investigation Discovery's popular ongoing true crime series Murder in the Heartland (2017). Additionally, he booked a co-star role in Maximum Level (2025) aka. Saidai Reberu - one of Japan's most watched shows (ep. "9/11" aired countrywide on Fuji Television in 2025) and a guest star role on the Illumeably (2020) series. Justin can also be seen in Dana Kippel's short Damaged (2024) (a Watch The Footage production) - winner of the 2024 L.A. Shorts International Film Festival's Immaculate Heart Community Filmmaker Recipients Award and a Top 100 Winner at the Show Low Film Festival. He has made appearances in close to 20 music videos since 2022, most notably with Nickelodeon alum Drake Bell in "Going Away" (dir. Chris Applebaum), HUNNY's "Homesick" (Epitaph Records), and in Mallory Merk's "Thorns" (Warner Records). Justin voices the character of Max in Kaletale Entertainment's "Chili Green" animated series, and has done voice work on several short films, audiobooks and commercials.

Justin has walked the runway during L.A. Fashion Week, and in 2023 he appeared in a print campaign for luxury brand Global Intuition in a collab with Heroes Motors. The brand has been featured in Vogue World (Teyana Taylor and Iman Shumpert Denim Campaign) and the Vogue Fall Fashion issue featuring Taylor Swift. Justin became SAG eligible in 2007 and has been a member of the Actor's Equity Association since 1998. He is represented by Arc Artist Management and Stark Talent Agency in Los Angeles. Justin lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
- IMDb mini biography by: Justin Nickolas