Richard Ellef Ayoade (/ˌaɪoʊˈɑːdi/ EYE-oh-AH-dee; born 23 May 1977) is a British comedian, actor, broadcaster, and filmmaker. He played the role of socially awkward IT technician Maurice Moss in Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd (2006–2013), for which he won the 2014 BAFTA for Best Male Comedy Performance.
From 1998 to 1999, Ayoade was the president of the Footlights club whilst a student at the University of Cambridge. He and Matthew Holness debuted their respective characters Dean Learner and Garth Marenghi at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2000, bringing the characters to television with Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (2004) and Man to Man with Dean Learner (2006). He appeared in the comedy shows The Mighty Boosh (2004–2007) and Nathan Barley (2005). After directing music videos for Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys, Vampire Weekend, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, he wrote and directed the comedy-drama film Submarine (2010), an adaptation of the 2008 novel by Joe Dunthorne. He co-starred in the American science fiction comedy film The Watch (2012) and his second film as a writer and director, the black comedy The Double (2013), drew inspiration from Fyodor Dostoevsky's novella of the same title.
Ayoade has frequently appeared on panel shows, most prominently on The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, and served as a team captain on Was It Something I Said? (2013). He presented the factual shows Gadget Man (2013–2015), its spin-off Travel Man (2015–2019), and the revival of The Crystal Maze (2017-2020). He has also voiced characters in a number of animated projects, including the films The Boxtrolls (2014), Early Man (2018), The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019), Soul (2020), and The Bad Guys (2022), as well as the series Strange Hill High (2013–2014), Apple & Onion (2018–2021), and Disenchantment (2021).
Ayoade has written three comedic film–focused books: Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey (2014), The Grip of Film (2017), and Ayoade on Top (2019). He wrote the children's book The Book That No One Wanted to Read (2022) and is writing a picture book called The Fairy Tale Fan Club.
Ayoade often works alongside Julian Barratt, Matt Berry, Noel Fielding, Matthew Holness, and Rich Fulcher.
Early life
The ADC Theatre, home of Footlights
Richard Ellef Ayoade was born in Hammersmith, London on 23 May 1977, the son of a Norwegian mother and Nigerian father. The family moved to Ipswich when he was young. At the age of 15, he developed an interest in film "beyond Star Wars and Back to the Future" and began exploring the works of directors Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, and Federico Fellini. He studied at the independent St Joseph's College in Ipswich, where he recalls being "obsessed" with J. D. Salinger's book The Catcher in the Rye. He was so obsessed with the book that he started to dress like its protagonist, Holden Caulfield.
From 1995 to 1998, Ayoade studied law at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he won the Martin Steele Prize for play production and was president of the amateur theatrical club Footlights. He and Footlights vice-president John Oliver wrote and performed in several productions together, appearing in both Footlights' 1997 and 1998 touring shows: Emotional Baggage (directed by Matthew Holness) and Between a Rock and a Hard Place (directed by Cal McCrystal). Ayoade says that his parents would not approve of studies considered to be of the "Regency era", adding that "a non-vocational degree seemed such an outlandish indulgence". He said that his degree in law was no longer a viable "fallback" for him and that he would need to "go back to square one".
