Bio  I  Resume (PDF download)

Will Collyer was born in Portland, Oregon, and raised in a suburb of San Francisco. His father works in software marketing and his mother is a schoolteacher. The youngest of three boys, his two older brothers both work in scientific fields, one a geologist and the other a veterinarian.

While the Palo Alto Children's Theater was Will's introduction to the stage, it was his professional debut as Young Charlie in TheatreWorks' Bay Area premiere of Conversations With My Father, that would propel his acting ambitions. Reviews praised his performance as "standout...an excellent reading of the conflicts in teen-aged Charlie's life: the constantly mixed messages from his father, the troubling fate of owning a poet's mind and a non-athletic body in the family of a former boxer, and the battle for recognition in the shadow of his older brother (and successful boxer) Joey (Jonathan Rider), whom he both idolizes and resents."

Diving into a full load of academics and extra-curriculars throughout high school, it was as a theater major at UCLA that he brought his acting life into focus, snagging roles such as Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing and Dauntless in Once Upon a Mattress under the direction of alumnus Carol Burnett, and taking home the 1st Place Carol Burnett Award and Scholarship through a talent competition his sophomore year. He sang with and musically directed the student-led Awaken A Cappella, recording two albums during his tenure and landing the No. 1 Track on the national compilation disc, Best of College A Cappella with his arrangement of "Walk Like an Egyptian". As well, he added to his professional stage credits, joining Reprise! for three productions; Bells Are Ringing, The Boys From Syracuse, and Hair, the last of which overlapped with his graduation ceremony at UCLA, such that he was on the professional stage and not the academic one for the symbolic cap and gown procession.

Since graduation, acting has taken Will to Mexico, Hungary, New York and of course, multiple venues and studios in his current home, Los Angeles. He continues to study acting and voice, and has built an impressive resume of roles in TV and Film to add to his growing list of stage credits. Backstage West noted of his work in the play Little Secrets: "[Collyer] dominates the evening...[He] has a subtlety of mood and action that works beautifully, and his sense of Donny's slow disintegration is as honestly effective as his controlled emotional reversal when he discovers Jarrett's weakness and falsity."

On screen, he has found a niche portraying darker-edged characters on Boston Public, Judging Amy (opposite Tyne Daly), CSI: Miami, Las Vegas (opposite James Caan) and (spoiler alert!) as the killer in the film Claustrophobia while tapping into his brainier side to portray academic do-gooders on Jack & Bobby and Charmed. As well, his musicianship nabbed him several supporting roles in Hallmark Entertainment's A Christmas Carol: The Musical. Will is a proud member of SAG.