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Nicholas Ofczarek was born on May 30, 1971 in Vienna to the opera singer couple Klaus and Roberta Ofczarek. The family lived in Graz and Switzerland for several years. After graduating from high school, Nicholas Ofczarek trained as an actor at the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien (MUK) and was then active in Vienna's independent theater scene from 1991 to 1994, for example at the Theater der Jugend and the Theater Drachengasse. In 1994 Claus Peymann hired him at Vienna's Burgtheater, where he was initially given smaller roles, such as Martius in "Titus Andronicus" and Shir Khan in "The Jungle Book" (both 1994/95).
Eventually Peymann became more aware of him and began to promote him. In the 1995/96 season, Nicholas Ofczarek became a permanent member of the ensemble at the Burgtheater and played his first leading role alongside Martin Schwab in "Der Messias". Over the years he had numerous important roles at the Burgtheater. In 1999 he was awarded the Josef Kainz Medal. In 2005 Ofczarek was awarded the Nestroy Theater Prize for his portrayal of Johann in "Zu ebener Erde und erster Stock oder Die Launen des Glücks", and the following year he received the same prize again for his role in "Höllenangst". In 2012, he received the Nestroy Ring of the city of Bad Ischl as well as the Gertrud Eysoldt Ring for his portrayal of Kasimir in "Kasimir und Karoline" at the Munich Residenztheater. In addition, Ofczarek appeared at the Salzburg Festival from 2010 to 2012 in the title role of "Jedermann".
Parallel to his work on stage, Ofczarek also began to take on smaller television roles from the mid-1990s. On the big screen, he made appearances in Barbara Albert's "Nordrand" (AT) in 1999 and, as a pub guest, in Peter Payer's "Untersuchung an Mädeln" ("Girls Under Investigation", AT). But it was not until the beginning of the 2000s that he appeared regularly in front of the camera. He had guest or returning roles in TV series such as "Julia – Eine ungewöhnliche Frau" and "Kommissar Rex" as well as in television dramas such as "Familie auf Bestellung" (2004) and "Der Winzerkönig" (2006).
He had a major feature film role in Marcus H. Rosenmüller's historical comedy "Schwere Jungs" ("Heavyweights", 2006) as the archrival of Sebastian Bezel's main character. In the film biography "Falco – Verdammt, wir leben noch!" (AT/DE 2008), he portrayed Markus Spiegel, the Austrian pop star's discoverer. He had a leading role as a village policeman in the Swiss production "Sennentuntschi" ("Sennentuntschi: Curse of the Alps", 2010), based on the Alpine legend of the same name; in Florian David Fitz's romantic comedy "Jesus liebt mich" ("Jesus Loves Me", 2012), he played none other than Satan himself.
For his role as a passionate theater man in Marcus H. Rosenmüller's feature film "Sommer der Gaukler" (2011), he was awarded the Austrian Film and Television Award Romy as Most Popular Actor in 2012. The following year, he received another Romy nomination for his role as a disco owner in the series "Braunschlag". Ofczarek also received much critical praise for his portrayal of an unorthodox investigator in Lars Becker's rough police film "Unter Feinden" (2013, TV), which was followed by the prequel "Zum Sterben zu früh" (2015, TV) and the sequel "Reich oder tot" (2017, TV).
In the "Tatort" crime thriller "Die Geschichte vom bösen Friederich" (2016), Ofczarek played an intense leading role as a psychotic murderer, a performance that earned him the German Academy of Television Award as well as nominations for the Hessian Television Award and the German Actor Award. He also received another award for his extensive stage work at the Burgtheater: in 2017 he was awarded the title 'Kammerschauspieler'.
On the big screen, he appeared as a suicidal farmer in Petra Volpe's drama "Die göttliche Ordnung" ("The Divine Order", CH 2017), about the fight for women's suffrage in a Swiss village in the 1970s. For the screenplay of the feature film "Zauberer" ("Sorcerer", 2018, together with Sebastian Brauneis and Clemens Setz), a thriller about the disappearance of a young boy, he received the Special Jury Prize as part of the author trio at the Thomas Pluch Screenplay Award. The German-Austrian thriller series "Der Pass" ("Pagan Peak"), in which he starred alongside Julia Jentsch as a washed-up Austrian investigator, was also a great success in 2018. This role earned him (along with the rest of the main team) the prestigious Grimme Award. He also received nominations for the German Television Award, the German Academy Television Award and the Bavarian Television Award.
Nicholas Ofczarek had feature film roles as a pharmacist in Moritz Bleibtreu's paranoia thriller "Cortex" (2020), as a gangster boss in the adventure comedy "Nightlife" (2020) and as a crooked but loyal hotel employee in the Thomas Mann adaptation "Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull" ("The Confessions of Felix Krull", 2021). In the four-part TV series "Die Ibiza Affäre" ("The Ibiza Affair", DE/AT 2021), about the 2019 political scandal of the same name, Ofczarek played a key role as a private detective and suspected co-director of the affair.
January 2022 saw the start of the second season of "Der Pass," for which Ofczarek won the Romy award in the category of Most Popular Actor in a Series and received a renewed nomination for the German Television Award. Lighter fare was the children's film "Der Räuber Hotzenplotz" ("The Robber Hotzenplotz", DE/CH 2022), with Ofczarek in the title role.