Nick Park

Nick Park was born Nicholas Wulstan Park on December 6, 1958, in Preston, Lancashire, England. After graduating from Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University), he attended the National Film and Television School.⁠[1]

In 1985 Park joined Aardman, where he worked on commercials and the music video for Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer.⁠[1]

In 1989 Park introduced the characters Wallace and Gromit in the short A Grand Day Out, which won the 1990 BAFTA for best animated short film.⁠[2]

The same year Park’s Creature Comforts premiered on Channel 4 as part of the Lip Synch series; its documentary-interview style was later used in a series of Heat Electric commercials.⁠[3]

At the 63rd Academy Awards in 1991, Park won Short Film (Animated) for Creature Comforts, while A Grand Day Out was also nominated.⁠[4]

At the 66th Academy Awards in 1994, Park again won Short Film (Animated), for The Wrong Trousers.⁠[5]

Park became a director of Aardman Animations Limited on July 20, 1994; he had already been a director of Wallace & Gromit Limited before December 18, 1992.⁠[6]

At the 68th Academy Awards in 1996, Park won Short Film (Animated) for a third time, with A Close Shave.⁠[7]

In June 1997 Park was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE, Civil Division) for services to the animated film industry.⁠[8][9]

Chicken Run, released in June 2000 and directed by Park and Peter Lord, was Aardman’s first full-length theatrical feature.⁠[10]

At the 78th Academy Awards in 2006, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit won Animated Feature Film, credited to Park and Steve Box.⁠[11]

The 2008 Wallace & Gromit film A Matter of Loaf and Death drew more than 16.2 million viewers, making it the UK’s most-watched television programme of the 2000s.⁠[12]

From June 1, 2013, to December 14, 2017, Park was a director of Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Foundation, and from November 5, 2018, he has been a director of Aardman Holdings Limited.⁠[6]

In 2018 Park’s Early Man was released, with Eddie Redmayne voicing the hero Dug and Tom Hiddleston voicing Lord Nooth.⁠[13]

In January 2023, marking 30 years of The Wrong Trousers, Park said “The Wrong Trousers was a special film for all of us at Aardman.” A new Wallace & Gromit film was announced for 2024, to premiere on the BBCBBCThe BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is the United Kingdom’s public broadcaster. Its predecessor was the British Broadcasting Company, formed in 1922, and since 1927 it has been established under a Royal Charter. It provides television, radio, and online services in the UK, is funded mainly by the television licence fee, and broadcasts worldwide in multiple languages through BBC World Service.Open the full entry in the UK and exclusively on Netflix elsewhere.⁠[12]

On June 6, 2024, the new film was announced as bringing back the villainous penguin Feathers McGraw, premiering that winter on the BBC in the UK and globally on Netflix. Describing the idea, Park said: “What if Feathers was involved with these gnomes?”⁠[14]

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl was directed by Park and Merlin Crossingham from a story by Park and Mark Burton, and streams on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Netflix globally. Park said he had had the idea of a film about garden gnomes turning bad for more than a decade.⁠[15]

Vengeance Most Fowl received an Academy Award nomination and won the 2025 BAFTA Film Awards for animated film and for children’s and family film.⁠[2]

From June 30 to August 31, 2025, the Gromit Unleashed 3 trail ran in Bristol, with artists including Park and Paul McCartney.⁠[16]

On the film Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, Park is credited as executive producer and for the characters.⁠[17]

Gromit’s memoir, announced on June 19, 2026, and presented as told to Nick Park, was due in October; on October 14 Park hosted An Evening with Nick Park: The Wrong Trousers and Other Stories at the Barbican Hall in London.⁠[18]

Aardman Animations: Official website: https://www.aardman.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[19]