Born in Nutley, NJ, model-cum-actor Nick Zano developed an enduring infatuation with cinema well before his 13th birthday, reportedly from watching Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas (1990). The experience convinced Zano to dramatically turn away from his intention to become a Navy SEAL and pursue a career in film, with initial plans to hone his skills behind the camera. Shortly thereafter, Zano's family relocated to southeastern Florida, and Nick began to realize his show-business dreams, both on-stage (with involvement in high-school drama productions) and in broadcast (with production duties at the high school's in-house television station). Zano also began impetuously scripting and directing his own short-subject films -- an accomplishment that led to a victory in the JVC-Universal short film competition three years in a row, and that prompted West Palm Beach-based Prelude Pictures to give the young upstart a prestigious development job in feature film and television immediately after graduation from secondary school.
Not long after, Zano decided to shift gears and focus on acting; he moved to Los Angeles in June 2001 and commenced an endless series of auditions for parts in various productions, and achieved perhaps his greatest coup by landing a covetable assignment as an MTV correspondent on its cinema-themed talk program Movie House, and later on the makeover-themed reality show Why Can't I Be You? Zano's cinematic breakthrough arrived in 2008 with a plum role in the teen comedy College; that year, he also signed on for the fourth installment of the long-running Final Destination franchise. In 2011 he landed a recurring role on the successful CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls.
