Ian Alexander (actor)
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Ian Alexander (born April 20, 2001) is an American actor, known for their roles as Buck Vu on ''
The OA ''The OA'' is an American mystery drama television series with science fiction, supernatural, and fantasy elements. ''The OA'' debuted on Netflix on December 16, 2016. Created and executive produced by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, the series ...
'', as Lev in ''
The Last of Us Part II ''The Last of Us Part II'' is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. Set five years after ''The Last of Us'' (2013), the game focuses on two playable charac ...
'', and as Gray Tal on '' Star Trek: Discovery''.


Early and personal life

Alexander was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to an American father and a Vietnamese mother. Due to their father's work with the
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, their family often moved and has lived in places such as
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
, Japan and
Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
. During elementary school, they participated in community theater and chorus. They received viral attention online through their photo response to a
transphobic Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger tow ...
incident perpetrated by four UCLA college students. Though they were raised in a
Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...
family, they are not a participating member, and "consider hemselfto be agnostic". They
came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...
as
transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...
in 2014; their pronouns are preferably ''they''/''them'' while accepting the alternative ''he''/''him'', and they are
non-binary Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...
and
pansexual , meaning "all" , definition = Sexual or romantic attraction to people regardless of gender , classification = Sexual identity , parent = Bisexuality , synonyms = , associated_terms = Polysexual, queer, heterofl ...
.


Career

Alexander's debut acting role was on
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
's ''
The OA ''The OA'' is an American mystery drama television series with science fiction, supernatural, and fantasy elements. ''The OA'' debuted on Netflix on December 16, 2016. Created and executive produced by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, the series ...
'', where they played Buck Vu. Buck, like Alexander, is also a
Vietnamese-American Vietnamese Americans ( vi, Người Mỹ gốc Việt, lit=Viet-origin American people) are Americans of Vietnamese ancestry. They make up about half of all overseas Vietnamese and are the fourth-largest Asian American ethnic group after Chinese ...
transgender youth and was partially based on Alexander's real experiences. They were cast from an open casting call online that spread through
Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...
. Later they were cast in the 2018 feature film '' Every Day'', based on the
book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
by
David Levithan David Levithan (born September 7, 1972) is an American young adult fiction author and editor."David Levithan". October 30, 2008. Gale Database. ''Contemporary Authors Online''. UWM Golda Meir Library, Milwaukee. July 1, 2009. He has written numer ...
, playing Vic, a trans teen whom the spirit "A" inhabits for a day. In October 2017,
Naughty Dog Naughty Dog, LLC (formerly JAM Software, Inc.) is an American first-party video game developer based in Santa Monica, California. Founded by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin in 1984, the studio was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2001. Gav ...
announced Alexander had joined the cast for ''
The Last of Us Part II ''The Last of Us Part II'' is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. Set five years after ''The Last of Us'' (2013), the game focuses on two playable charac ...
'', the sequel to their popular video game. They played Lev, a transgender character in the game. In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the
Stonewall Riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...
, sparking the start of the modern
LGBTQ rights movement Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
, ''
Queerty ''Queerty'' is an online magazine and newspaper covering gay-oriented lifestyle and news, founded in 2005 by David Hauslaib. As of June 2015, the site had more than five million monthly unique visitors. History ''Queerty'' was founded by David ...
'' named them one of their Pride50: "trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards
equality Equality may refer to: Society * Political equality, in which all members of a society are of equal standing ** Consociationalism, in which an ethnically, religiously, or linguistically divided state functions by cooperation of each group's elite ...
, acceptance and dignity for all
queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...
people". Similarly, Alexander was one of the cover stars for the 2019 Pride issue of ''
them. ''Them'' is an American online magazine, online List of LGBT periodicals, LGBT magazine launched in October 2017 by Phillip Picardi and owned by Condé Nast. Its coverage includes LGBT culture, fashion, and politics. History In 2017 Picardi, ...
'', "spotlighting three rising queer artists whose work and lives are breaking new ground for LGBTQ+ visibility". In March 2020, it was announced Alexander will star in the independent film ''Daughter''. In September 2020, it was announced Alexander had joined the cast of '' Star Trek: Discovery''; they play the first transgender character played by a transgender actor in the Star Trek canon.


Filmography


Notes


References


External links

* * * * * – uploaded by the director and co-writer Corey Clark {{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander, Ian 21st-century American actors American non-binary actors American people of Vietnamese descent American television actors Actors from Salt Lake City Transgender rights activists Transgender non-binary people Pansexual entertainers Pansexual actors 2001 births Living people LGBT people from Utah LGBT American people of Asian descent Pansexual non-binary people