Biography
Richard Ayoade is a British actor, comedian, writer and director. He was born on 23 May 1977 in Hammersmith, London, to a Norwegian mother and a Nigerian father, and grew up in Suffolk. He studied law at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he served as president of the Footlights.
Ayoade is best known for playing Maurice Moss in the Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd (2006–2013), for which he received a BAFTA Television Award. He has directed the feature films Submarine (2010) and The Double (2013), and appeared in films including The Watch (2012), Paddington 2 (2017) and The Phoenician Scheme (2025), in which he plays Sergio. He has also provided voice work in animated films such as Soul (2020) and The Bad Guys (2022), and has presented television series including Travel Man and The Crystal Maze.
