Hop For Pop
Press Kit
Actor · Writer · Solo Show
Mark Ryder
He had a place to study medicine when one email to a casting director got him cast as the young Liam Neeson in a Sundance winner. Now he plays a City finance bro who cannot get it up.
Based
London · from Belfast
Works in
Screen acting · Writing · Solo comedy
Known for
No Hard Felix · Five Minutes of Heaven
Mentor
Tom Fontana, creator of Oz
Interview
50 min · Hop For Pop · 2026
“Underneath all those men, there are parts of them that feel weak and sad and vulnerable. Every man has it — even the toughest, most powerful.”
Mark Ryder — Hop For Pop
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Biography
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Mark Ryder is a Belfast-born, London-based actor and writer who mostly works on screen. At eighteen he had a place lined up to study medicine when he went to an open casting for a film called Cherry Bomb, got a callback, then heard nothing. So he emailed the casting director to ask where he stood. The answer was no — and an invitation to audition for a different film the next morning. That was Five Minutes of Heaven, in which he played the young Liam Neeson, preparing by watching videos of how Neeson walked and how heavy his feet were. It won at Sundance, and it started his career. He never went to drama school.
He learned to write from Tom Fontana, the Emmy-winning creator of Oz, whom he met working on Borgia in his early twenties — a man who has woken at 5am to write every day for forty-five years. Short films and a web series followed. The subject he kept returning to was men: specifically British and Irish boys, and the laddish culture of rugby and the lads he grew up in.
That landed in No Hard Felix, his solo show. Felix is a City finance bro with a big watch, a bigger ego and erectile dysfunction, built from watching how men walk around the City of London. It is very silly and very Jim Carrey on the surface; underneath, it is about the vulnerability he believes every man is carrying and will not admit. Felix also runs an Instagram account that has drawn millions of views.
The part other press kits leave out
What you should know before you book him
Mark Ryder is a screen actor who built a comedy vehicle to say something he thinks men rarely say, and he has thought hard about why comedy carries it further than drama.
A comedy about masculinity, from a man
He notes that women have said a great deal about toxic masculinity and relatively few men have joined the conversation. Felix is his contribution, from the inside.
So masculine it turns round
He pushes the alpha posture so far that it comes full circle into something almost feminine — the bodybuilder in his pants, the matador. Then he takes the one thing away that the man cannot fix.
The laugh and the serious are not separate
He deliberately avoids a funny section followed by a sad section. The show moves between them constantly, which is why the serious lands.
Built from observation
Not one person and not autobiography — he watched finance men walk around the City and built a physicality from it. He is asked constantly whether it is personal.
Felix exists online
The character has his own Instagram with millions of views, so an audience may arrive already knowing him. A useful marketing asset for a booker.
A writer’s discipline
Trained by Tom Fontana’s 5am-every-day example. He is frank that his early writing was rubbish and that the only route out was to keep doing it.
For press · cleared for use with attribution
Quotable
01
“There were basketballs flying everywhere. It was complete carnage.”02
“I just emailed the casting director and said: hey, I didn’t hear if I’m going to be…”03
“They needed someone who could look close enough that you could believe it would be Liam Neeson when he was young.”04
“I watched his legs and tried to feel how straight they were, how heavy his feet were.”05
“Maybe my entire career as an actor came down to this one email.”06
“I was going to go and study medicine. I had a place, to train to be a doctor. And then my life went a completely different way.”07
“For the last 45 years he’s woken up at 5am and written every single day. He doesn’t miss a single day.”08
“Everyone has a little story they want to tell. But can you sit down and really get it done?”09
“If I read the absolute trash I wrote when I was starting — it was absolute crap. And you just keep doing it.”10
“I wanted to write about men — what’s really going on in the hearts and minds of men, particularly British and Irish boys.”11
“When it’s just you, you’re doing the dance with the audience. They kind of become the other character.”12
“If you mess up, it’s just you that messed up.”13
“He sees himself as this big masculine alpha guy who’s killing it in the world, but he’s got this problem that he cannot fix.”14
“You can be so masculine that it starts to become almost feminine. It comes full circle.”15
“There’s been a lot of women who have spoken about it. There’s not that many men who have come in and done things about it.”16
“Underneath all that there’s insecurity and vulnerability. All these men have it.”17
“You’re laughing, you’re having a good time — and then it’s serious. And then you laugh again.”18
“It’s not: oh, this is the laugh bit, and now we’re in the serious bit.”
Attribution: Mark Ryder, speaking to Hop For Pop, 2026.
Career
Selected credits
Solo work
- No Hard Felix — written and performed by Mark Ryder; directed by Rute Costa; Smash Egg Productions; Just the Tonic, Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Screen
- Five Minutes of Heaven — young Liam Neeson; award-winner at Sundance
- Borgia — series written by Tom Fontana
- Film and television work since age eighteen
Writing
Short films and a web series. Mentored as a writer by Tom Fontana. Runs Felix’s character account on Instagram.
This kit was produced by Hop For Pop. The interview and quotes are drawn from Hop For Pop × Mark Ryder, recorded 2026. Mark Ryder and their representatives are free to use any part of this document — the biography, the quotes — for booking, press and promotion, with credit to Hop For Pop for the interview material.
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