Hammed Animashaun

Animashaun was born into a Nigerian family in Whitechapel in London. His father was a bus driver and his mother a voluntary worker. He had a growth spurt in college and one summer grew five inches. His younger brother is 6 ft 9”. Animashaun himself is 6 ft 3”. He was encouraged by his school drama teacher to join the Half Moon Children's Theatre in London's Limehouse. He studied philosophy with drama at university but dropped out when offered theatre roles.

He received second prize in the 2021 Ian Charleson Awards which recognise actors under the age of 30 in classical roles, for his role as Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bridge Theatre. He also won Best Supporting Actor at the WhatsOnStage Awards for the same production. Other stage roles have included ”Master Harold”...and the Boys, Athol Fugard’s drama set in apartheid South Africa, one of the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella at the Lyric Hammersmith, The Producers at the Manchester Royal Exchange, the original production of the Barber Shop Chronicles, Rufus Norris’s staging of The Threepenny Opera at the National and Michael Longhurst’s revival of Amadeus.

Animashaun appeared as Loial in the Amazon Prime Video series The Wheel of Time beginning in 2021. He stars in the 2023 BBC One comedy television series Black Ops, alongside Gbemisola Ikumelo and Akemnji Ndifornyen, playing an undercover policeman woefully out of his depth. His character, Kay, has been described as a “glass-half-full, God-fearing gentle giant and the opposite of street-smart.” He described the role on the show as a “dream come true” and that he kept expecting to be replaced for a bigger named actor in the role. He has been praised for his chemistry with Ikumelo.

In 2023, he was awarded one of two scripted creators in residence for BBC Studios TalentWorks to work with producers on scripted comedy and drama.