An active boy, he rarely watched television growing up, preferring to spend his leisure time on his interests of sport and music.

In the first two seasons of the television series, Nay portrayed character Otti Sörensen while using the stage name Jonas Friedebom.

After finishing school, Nay took the lead role in the TV film Homevideo [de], a drama about a teenage boy bullied by his classmates, who shared a video of him masturbating.

"[2] Nay opted for Zivildienst, rather than military service, working with people with disabilities; he went on to look at film scoring.

[1] He founded the band Concerted with other students at the Johanneum he had attended in his adolescence,[3] in which he sang, played guitar and piano, and wrote the lyrics.