Nicholas Christopher Herbert was born on the 22nd June 1962 in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. After realizing his acting ambitions, he changed his name to surname to Lea.
In the years before acting, Nick worked in a clothes store and was also the lead singer in a band called Beau Monde, Nick's agent to this day insists that he has a lovely voice but won't put a word on tape!
The acting bug took a long hard bite and Nick eventually quit his clothes store job to pursue his acting career on advice from an acting coach friend.
In 1989, Nick gained a small role in the follow-up to the highly successful Canadian indie film 'My American Cousin' with the aptly titled 'American Boyfriends'. It wasn't long after this that Nick got his break in the Canadian cop drama series 'The Commish' as "Officer Ricky Caruso", of which Nick is often quoted as saying that this was were he learned his trade. Several small television roles followed.
The early 90's saw a few low-budget films come Nick's way, including 'Xtro 2: The Second Encounter' (1991), the critically successful short film 'From Pig To Oblivion' (1993), which he made under the direction of good friend Simon Barry along with several other friends and people he would later work with and 'The Raffle' (1993) in which Nick had his first lead role.
It was around this time that Nick got his big break in the groundbreaking tv series 'The X-Files' as the treacherous "Agent Alex Krycek" for which he has won critical praise. This role would prove to be a turning point in Nick's career. Since then Nick has gone from strength to strength, gaining a large internet following and the nickname "Ratboy".
His next big role came in 1996 with a lead part in the hit tv movie 'John Woo's Once A Thief' which was later turned into a less successful tv series and was cancelled after only one season, still, this gave Nick some valuable experience with perhaps the worlds best action movie director, John Woo, who himself has been quoted as saying that he thinks Nick is a very good actor with a promising future).
In 1999, the lead in the Jason Priestley directed 'Moontide' re-make 'Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye' was good news, but it never aired until a long time after. But 1999 also gave Nick a fairly large part in his first Hollywood blockbuster movie, 'Vertical Limit', which gave him some nice exposure.
Since then Nick has made several indie films including the first ever Canada/Hong Kong production 'Lunch With Charles', family entertainment movie 'The Impossible Elephant', 'Shot In The Face' and Benjamin Ratner's directorial debut 'Moving Malcolm'.
In his spare time, Nick enjoys playing golf with former 'X-Files' acting buddy Mitch Pilleggi. Nick also once wanted to be a proffesional Soccer player but chose acting instead (thank god), but he still plays the game to this day.
Nick takes inspiration from actors such as Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman and Harvey Keitel and films such as Patriot Games and Magnolia. His theatre work includes the plays 'At Home' (Gastown Theatre), 'Bloody Business' (Western Canadian Theatre CO./New Bastion Theatre), 'Fair Game' (Arts Club Theatre) and 'For What We Reap' (Station Street Theatre).