Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Photo: Chemical Engineer, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RADA_62_Gower_Street,_London_WC1E_6ED._Frontage_dates_from_1905.JPG)
Gallery of Michael Malarkey
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Photo: Charles Yarnold ( en:User:Solex1001 ), CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LAMDA_building.jpg)
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Photo: Chemical Engineer, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RADA_62_Gower_Street,_London_WC1E_6ED._Frontage_dates_from_1905.JPG)
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Photo: Charles Yarnold ( en:User:Solex1001 ), CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LAMDA_building.jpg)
Michael Malarkey is an American actor and singer known for playing Lorenzo “Enzo” St. John in The Vampire Diaries and Captain Michael Quinn in Project Blue Book. His career has included London theatre, television drama, film, and a parallel career as an alternative singer-songwriter with several independently released albums and EPs.
Background
Ethnicity:
His father was Irish American, while his British mother had Arab and Italian ancestry.
Malarkey was born on June 21, 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon, to an Irish-American father and a British mother of Arab and Italian ancestry. His family later settled in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he grew up as the oldest of three brothers, Daniel and Kevin.
Yellow Springs is a small Ohio community associated with Antioch College and a strong tradition of liberal arts, cultural experimentation, and community activism. Malarkey has described the town's openness to alternative ideas, music, and art as part of the environment in which his creative interests developed. He moved to London in 2006 to pursue professional acting training.
Education
Malarkey studied Shakespeare through intensive courses at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before moving to London in 2006 to train at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. RADA, founded in 1904, is one of Britain's major institutions for actor training, while LAMDA, established in 1861, is among the country's oldest drama schools and has long combined classical theatre training with preparation for professional stage and screen work.
His training led into London theatre, where he appeared in productions at Theatre 503, the National Theatre, Wilton's Music Hall, and the West End. The progression from conservatory study to professional stage work formed the foundation for his later television and film career.
Malarkey began his professional career on the London stage. In 2009 he played Lee in Inches Apart at Theatre 503, a London venue known for developing new writing, and the production won the Theatre 503/Old Vic New Voices Award. He subsequently appeared as Arthur in Spring Storm and Robert in Beyond the Horizon at the National Theatre, institutions representing both contemporary and classical theatrical production in Britain.
In 2011 he played Elvis Presley in the West End production of Million Dollar Quartet at the Noël Coward Theatre. The jukebox musical recreated the 1956 recording session involving Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins, combining acting with live performance of rock-and-roll material. In 2012 Malarkey played Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby at Wilton's Music Hall and also appeared in The Intervention at the Edinburgh Festival.
His screen work began with the short film Good Morning Rachel in 2009 and continued with Ghost in the Machine, the television feature Impirioso, and appearances in documentary-drama and television series. He gained broad recognition as Lorenzo “Enzo” St. John in The Vampire Diaries, first appearing as a recurring character in the fifth season before becoming a series regular. He later played Sam Foster in The Oath and Captain Michael Quinn in History's Project Blue Book, a drama centered on the United States Air Force's investigations of unidentified flying objects after the Second World War.
Malarkey's later television roles included Emmett in Westworld, Deputy Harvey in Big Sky, and Markus in the second season of Netflix's The Night Agent. In 2026 he appeared as Adam Shevlin in the fourth season of the CBS series Tracker. Alongside acting, he has developed a career as a singer-songwriter, releasing alternative and alt-Americana recordings and performing with acoustic and full-band ensembles.
Achievements
Malarkey won the Theatre 503/Old Vic New Voices Award for his performance as Lee in Inches Apart in 2009. The award recognized the production's place in the development of new theatrical writing and helped mark his early professional stage career.
Malarkey established a sustained parallel career in music, writing and performing alternative and alt-Americana songs while continuing to work as an actor. His independent releases include studio albums, extended plays, and live recordings.
(A full-band live album recorded in Munich and Prague duri...)
2021
Views
Malarkey has described Yellow Springs as a place that encouraged open-mindedness, alternative thought, music, and artistic experimentation. In discussing Project Blue Book, he said that growing up in such an environment left him receptive to changing his opinions and considering possibilities beyond conventional explanations.
His songwriting frequently uses images of travel, estrangement, memory, emotional conflict, and personal change. The themes of his albums and songs suggest an artistic preoccupation with uncertainty, identity, damaged relationships, and the search for renewal, while his musical work remains rooted in alternative, folk, and Americana-influenced styles.
Interests
Songwriting, guitar, live acoustic performance, theatre, and film and television acting.
Music & Bands
Malarkey is a singer-songwriter whose music combines alternative rock, alt-folk, and Americana influences. He has cited Tom Waits as an important influence, particularly Waits's vivid songwriting and albums such as Rain Dogs and The Heart of Saturday Night.
Connections
Malarkey married English actress Nadine Lewington on June 6, 2009. They have two sons, Hugo and Marlon Malarkey. His parents are Jim Malarkey and Nadia Malarkey, and he has two brothers, Daniel and Kevin.
Wife:
Nadine Lewington
English actress who married Malarkey in 2009; they have two sons.
