Spotlight: Masi Oka
Masi Oka stars in NBC’s new ensemble drama series “Heroes” as Hiro Nakamura, a Tokyo nonconformist computer/anime enthusiast who develops a way to pierce the space-time continuum and move back in time through sheer will power. “Heroes” follows the lives of ordinary people who discover they possess extraordinary abilities.
No stranger to television, Oka has had recurring roles on NBC’s “Scrubs” as Franklyn and “Luis” as Deng Wu. He also guest-starred on “Without a Trace,” “Joey,” “Reba,” “The Loop,” “All of Us,” “Still Standing,” “Will & Grace,” “Yes, Dear” and “Gilmore Girls.”
His feature-film credits include memorable roles in “Along Came Polly,” “Austin Powers in Goldmember” and “House of the Dead 2: Dead Aim.”
With a background in improvisation, Oka has performed on the stages of Second City, ImprovOlympics, The Groundlings, and TheatreSports. His improvisational expertise has been showcased with guest appearances as various characters on “Punk’d,” “Reno 911″ and “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment.”
After graduating from Brown University with degrees in mathematics and computer science and a theatre arts minor, Oka pursued an acting career while taking his first job at George Lucas’ Oscar-winning special effects house Industrial Light & Magic. Today, despite his successful career as an actor, he continues to provide ILM with technology for groundbreaking effects for more than 30 films.
Oka was born in Tokyo, Japan, and moved to Los Angeles at age six, where he currently resides. He is fluent in Japanese and proficient in Spanish. His hobbies include Kendo (Japanese sword fighting), playing video games, watching and writing romantic comedies, playing the piano, and singing. He celebrated his birthday last December 27 with a Golden Globe nomination.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the latest entertainment updates right into your inbox:
This entry was posted
on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 11:57 am and is filed under Hot Celebs, Main, Spotlight.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
If you like this post 
Subscribe in a reader
July 27th, 2007 at 4:16 am
Masi Oka has done a great job in the first season of heroes, I think that they will keep him around for a long time, at least 3 or so seasons, but then again they seem to go through certain characters a lot, it keeps the audince on their feet and thinking so that is a good thing.
Great site by the way.