Jona Levin Nicolai was born in Berlin in 2004. After gaining initial stage experience, he made his television debut in 2020 in an episode of the crime series "Der Alte", where he played the son of a fugitive murder suspect. This was followed by a smaller but recurring supporting role in Rick Ostermann's thriller series "The Net" (2021). In 2022, Hanna Slak cast him in a leading role in the mother-daughter drama "Kein Wort" ("Not A Word", DE/FR/SI).

Before this film premiered, Nicolai appeared in several television productions. He featured in an episode of the hospital series "Bettys Diagnose" (2022) as a student with alcohol poisoning and portrayed a young investigator Karow in the crime thriller "Das Opfer" (2022) from the "Tatort" series. Nicolai also took on a leading role in the TV romance "Rosamunde Pilcher - Amys Wunschkind" (2023), playing a teenager searching for his biological father. "Kein Wort" then premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in the fall of 2023, with its German theatrical release following in June 2024.