- Born
- Birth nameNicholas Simon Lyndhurst
- Height6′ 1½″ (1.87 m)
- Nicholas lives in village by the sea in West Sussex just a few miles from where he was born. He went to Drama school at 10 and apart from his first term he paid his own way by earning money from commercials and acting bits and pieces. He shot to fame on television in the dual role of Tom Canty and Prince Edward in The Prince and the Pauper prior to which he was in Heidi and Anne of Avonlea and afterwards he played Dobson in To Serve Them All of My Days, Ronnie Barker's son, Raymond in Going Straight and Wendy Craig's son Adam in Butterflies. He's best known as Rodney in Only Fools and Horses, which ran for 5 series, and The Two of Us. His life long passions are surfing, sailing, scuba diving, fishing and flying for which he hopes to get his pilot's licence. He enjoys cooking, particularly Chinese food.- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5
- SpouseLucy Smith(September 1, 1999 - present) (1 child)
- Children
- Always before a live studio recording of Only Fools and Horses (1981), Lyndhurst and David Jason used to go to the canteen and have the same meal, almost like a ritual or a superstition, because they used to get so nervous.
- He has no interest in the showbiz scene, avoiding parties and social events in favor of diving, which is his life-long passion.
- Once, he and David Jason brought a bag full of bangers into rehearsals for Only Fools and Horses (1981); they loaded the stacked chairs with them and the cubicle doors in the toilets. When production assistant Tony Dow unstacked the chairs, they went off, making him afraid to touch them. Jason and Lyndhurst thought it funny until a cleaning lady tried to mop the gents and nearly died of fright. They never pulled that prank again.
- Close friends with his Only Fools and Horses (1981) co-star David Jason. Jason described them both as "a pair of silly Buddhas" and Lyndhurst as shiny-faced in his autobiography, and liked to call him Nick. They had met, along with Lennard Pearce, on other acting jobs before Only Fools and Horses (1981). Lyndhurst and Jason struck up an instant rapport in a motor-home while waiting to film location shoots, where they would mess about at the first opportunity. They used to play pranks on the set, e.g. pretending to have fallen out to worry the crew, or nailing Lennard Pearce's shoes to the floor or turning his costume inside out. Although Pearce mostly saw the funny side of things, that day he refused to work until director Ray Butt talked him around and Jason and Lyndhurst apologized. Jason claimed it was the only time Pearce lost perspective.
- When he did a series of adverts for WH Smith a few years ago in which he played an entire family of four, he admitted to enjoying playing the mum best.
- I can't think of Only Fools... (Only Fools and Horses (1981)) without smiling - if it can make you smile after 30 years, that's good.
- Up until he was about six, Archie didn't know what I did for a living. I used to take him to Woolworths and we'd walk past the DVD section where there'd be pictures of me in Only Fools... or Goodnight Sweetheart (1993). He just thought there was a picture of everybody's daddy there!
- [on Rock & Chips (2010)] If it had had the trappings of a sitcom I would probably have stayed away. If it had been filmed in front of a studio audience and if it had been too similar to Only Fools.... But it's all shot on film, with a lot of location work, and it's period stuff. This is a drama with some funny bits, as far as I'm concerned.
- [he and David Jason getting nervous before a recording of Only Fools and Horses] Why do we do this to ourselves?
- We used to rehearse Fools and Horses in a brown, concrete, soulless tower block that overlooked an industrial estate in North Acton and John Sullivan made it the happiest workplace on the planet.
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