Nick Maley is an Emmy-nominated Special Make-up & Creature FX Designer/Director, author, artist, and motivational speaker, affectionately known as "That Yoda Guy" for his celebrated role in the creation of the iconic Jedi Master for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Born in London to a theatrical family, Nick was immersed in the entertainment world from an early age, learning stage make-up at seven, participating in school plays, and teaching theatrical make-up at Middlesex University at the tender age of nineteen.
His career in film began in 1969 at MGM's UK studios. A protégé of legendary make-up artist Stuart Freeborn, Nick played a hands-on role whilst working with Stuart to create the creatures and character effects for the Classic Star Wars Trilogy, Gene Roddenberry's Spectre, and Superman I & II.
He has contributed to 63 films/videos to date including A Bridge Too Far, Krull, Highlander, Duran Duran's Grammy-winning Wild Boys video, horror cult classics The Shining, Michael Mann's The Keep, and Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce, for which he directed second unit. He and wife Gloria wrote the screenplay Inseminoid in 1980, but were so unhappy with the final movie that they requested their names be removed from the credits.
Having earned an Emmy nomination for transforming Sir Anthony Hopkins into The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Nick's movie work was featured in HBO/Cinemax specials, American Cinematographer, Cinefantastique, Fangoria, Fantastic Films, and gained a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
At the age of 35, Nick and his wife Gloria traded their Ferrari for a sailboat and embarked on a Caribbean adventure, later founding the Island Arts Galleries in Antigua. Over the next 10 years, Nick's artwork gained international recognition, with exhibitions at venues such as the prestigious Surf Club in Miami Beach, The Shooting Gallery in New York City, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Museo de Arte Modern in the Dominican Republic, the Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, and was featured in UNESCO's Carib Art world tour.
But Nick was not finished with film. After directing projects for ABS TV and Black n Black Fashions, he formed his Caribbean based production company Impossible Dreams in 1995, and returned to LA to direct two music videos, winning awards at the 29th Worldfest Houston Film Festival in 1996.
In 2007 he moved his home base to Sint Maarten and in 2011, founded the Yoda Guy Movie Exhibit-an award-winning, nonprofit museum designed to inspire young visitors to follow their dreams. The exhibit has since become the #1 rated attraction in Philipsburg on TripAdvisor and was inducted into TripAdvisor's Hall of Fame in 2019.
Lucasfilm honored Nick in 2015 when they named one of the Mos Eisley Cantina characters "Demono DeoMaley" for his work on the Classic Star Wars Trilogy and his tireless contributions to the Lucasfilm Archive providing details about the UK creature build for A New Hope. Also that year, Nick took part in three Star Wars concerts with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra which was later named one of the top three cultural events in PR for 2015.
2016 he began reverse engineering a perfect rebuild of the back-up animatronic Yoda that he built in 1997, and which was used for 80% of Yoda's scenes. The rebuild was completed in 2021 and he takes it to speaking events, Comic Cons, schools and children's hospitals in an effort to inspire youngsters.
Expanding his creative pursuits, Nick authored two books: Words & Pictures (2010) and The Do or Do Not Outlook (2018),the latter offering motivational insights drawn from his life experiences is described by the publisher as "A Jedi's guide to self empowerment."
