My name is Nyx Calder. I am a non-binary and transmasculine actor, writer and speaker, and I use they/them pronouns. I have been living openly as a trans person for a little under 12 years, and working as an actor for a little longer than that. Most recently, I’ve been cast in the role of Scorpius Malfoy for the Melbourne production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. This role has had an immense impact on me, and I feel utterly thrilled to be portraying a lead role in such a major production while doing my best to provide what visibility I can for my own community.
Nyx Calder (left) as Scorpius Malfoy and Sean Rees-Wemyss as Albus Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.Credit:Damian Bennett
While I was studying at NIDA in 2016, an instructor who I hold in high regard asked me, “why did you want to become an actor?” By this point in my life I’d rehearsed a response to this question, an easy deflection, something to make people laugh and move on: “I just really need the attention!” But unlike every other person who’d asked me the same thing, she definitely didn’t find my answer amusing. “How incredibly disappointing,” she sighed, “Someone like you, with your history? I don’t believe you. There has to be a better reason.”
She was right, of course, I already knew the real reason.
I felt drawn to acting because I’d never seen anyone like me while I was growing up, or at least not in the mainstream media. I never had the opportunity to read books, see films or experience theatre that represented me or my identity in any meaningful way.