Ken Leung

Ken Leung is an American actor born on January 21, 1970, in New York City, to Chinese parents. He grew up initially in the Two Bridges section of the Lower East Side of Manhattan before his family relocated to Midwood, Brooklyn, where he spent much of his childhood. He completed high school in Old Bridge, New Jersey. Leung attended New York University, where he originally studied physical therapy before discovering acting during his junior year. He studied with Catherine Russell and Nan Smithner at NYU, and later briefly with Anne Jackson at HB Studio. During his early training, he performed in downtown spaces and black box theaters, working with organizations including Ma-Yi Theater Company, New Perspectives, and STAR, an actors-educators troupe based at Mount Sinai Hospital.

Leung's professional stage work began in 1998, when he appeared in Terrence McNally's passion play Corpus Christi, taking on the roles of James the Less and God. He made his Broadway debut in 2002, playing a Chinese immigrant in the musical revival Thoroughly Modern Millie, and also appeared on the production's cast recording. In 2011, he participated in the Dustin Lance Black play 8.

His film career began in 1998 with Brett Ratner's Rush Hour, in which he played the villainous henchman Sang opposite Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Edward Norton cast Leung in his directorial debut, Keeping the Faith, in 2000. Leung went on to appear in supporting roles across a range of films, including A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Red Dragon (2002), Saw (2004), The Squid and the Whale (2005), Inside Man (2006), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), and Old (2021). In 2007, he starred in the independent film Shanghai Kiss alongside Hayden Panettiere, earning a Special Mention at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

On television, Leung guest-starred in the final season of the HBO crime series The Sopranos in 2007 and appeared on the CBS legal series The Good Wife in 2011. He joined the ABC drama series Lost beginning with its fourth season, ultimately appearing in 45 episodes as Miles Straume between 2008 and 2010. He subsequently starred as Topher Zia in the NBC medical series The Night Shift from 2014 to 2015, and appeared in the CBS crime series Person of Interest from 2012 to 2013, as well as the Marvel series Inhumans in 2017. Beginning in 2020, Leung took on the main role of Eric Tao, a Managing Director on the Cross Product Sales desk at Pierpoint, in the HBO drama series Industry, a role he has continued into the present. In 2024, he played Commander Zhao in the Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Leung was born and raised in New York City and currently resides in Brooklyn. He speaks Cantonese. He is married to Nancy Bulalacao, a curator for public programs for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, and the couple have one son, born in 2015. Leung had a brother, Kevin, who drowned in Thailand in 2013.