is a Japanese actor, producer, and digital effects artist who became widely known for starring in
NBC's ''
Heroes'' as
Hiro Nakamura and in CBS's ''
Hawaii Five-0'' as Doctor Max Bergman.
Early life
Oka was born in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
, Japan, to Setsuko Oka.
His parents divorced when he was one month old; he was raised in a single parent family and has never met his father.
He was six years old when his mother and he moved to Los Angeles from Japan. At age eight, he appeared on the CBS-TV game show ''
Child's Play''. In 1987, a 12-year-old Oka was featured as one of several children on the cover of ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
'' magazine, for the article "Those Asian-American Whiz Kids." Though he was not featured in the article itself, he was acquainted with the photographer who conducted the shoot.
In 1988, he placed fourth in the California state
MATHCOUNTS
Mathcounts, stylized as MATHCOUNTS, is a nationwide middle school mathematics competition held in various places in the United States. Its current lead sponsors are Raytheon Technologies and the U.S. Department of Defense STEM.
Topics covered in ...
competition and was one of the four students to represent the state of California in the national competition.
Oka attended
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, where he was musical director of
The Bear Necessities
The Bear Necessities are an award-winning, TTBB acappella group from Brown University. They were established in 1992 making them the youngest of the three TTBB acappella groups at Brown. The Bears have released 7 albums, and are currently in th ...
all-male
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
group. He graduated in 1997 with a
BS in computer science and mathematics and a
minor in theater arts.
Oka landed his first job after graduation at
Industrial Light & Magic,
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the '' Star Wars'' and '' Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as c ...
's motion picture visual special effects company, with the hope of one day earning an
Oscar for technical work on a motion picture.
He was also featured in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' with ILM co-worker Anthony Shafer in a pre-dot-com article where he echoed his desire to meld acting and technology.
He worked on the
''Star Wars'' prequel trilogy.
Acting career
2000–2005: Move to Los Angeles and working actor
Oka first tried acting in 2000. He earned a
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to me ...
card by appearing in industry films, then moved to Los Angeles.
ILM stipulated in his contract that he could work at its Los Angeles branch but would have to return to their
Marin County, California, location if he did not get cast for a recurring role that season. Oka was cast in a
television pilot
A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie), in United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television network or other dis ...
, and although the show was not picked up, it satisfied the contract's requirements, and he was allowed to work in Los Angeles.
During this period, Oka landed several minor roles in film and television, such as ''
Austin Powers in Goldmember'' (2002) and the "
Dances with Couch" episode of the sitcom ''
Yes, Dear''. He eventually landed a recurring role as
Franklyn on the NBC comedy ''
Scrubs''.
He was featured in a North American commercial for
Sega's
2002 PlayStation 2 video game, ''
Shinobi'', with the catchphrase 'Shinobi's back!' in front of Sega's
1987 ''
Shinobi'' arcade cabinet.
2006–2010: ''Heroes'' and mainstream recognition
In 2006, Oka was cast as the time-manipulating
Hiro Nakamura in the
NBC television series ''
Heroes''. Oka translated his own dialogue for the show, from English to Japanese;
English subtitles accompanied his Japanese dialogue on the show. Prior to this, he was expecting to forgo acting by the end of that year's pilot season in lieu of pursuing writing and producing. ''Heroes'' was a breakout hit, and his portrayal of Nakamura earned him nominations for both a
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film and a
, the only actor on the show to be nominated on either award shows.
He was named the Coolest Geek at the
Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards on June 13, 2007. In 2007, he presented an award with ''Heroes'' co-star
Hayden Panettiere on the 20th annual ''
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards''.
In addition to his work on the show, he continued to work at ILM up to three days a week as a research and development technical director, writing programs that create special effects.
He played the role of Bruce in the big screen version of ''
Get Smart''. He played a
real estate broker who is trying to sell to
Seann William Scott's character in Steve Conrad's ''
The Promotion''.
2010–present: ''Hawaii Five-0'' and other projects
Oka played the coroner
Dr. Max Bergman in
CBS' ''
Hawaii Five-0'', a remake of
the original series which aired from 1968 to 1980. He joined the show's main cast in the second series. His character was written as an ethnic Japanese who was adopted at birth by
Jewish parents, hence his last name. Oka also made an appearance in the film ''
Friends with Benefits''.
In 2015, Oka reprised his role as
Hiro Nakamura in NBC's miniseries ''
Heroes Reborn''.
Oka has turned his digital effects skills to video game production, founding the video game development studio Mobius Digital, where he was a producer on the critically acclaimed ''
Outer Wilds''.
Personal life
Oka is fluent in
Japanese,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
and
Spanish. He worked on the
1992 Summer Olympics as an English, Spanish, and Japanese translator.
He played chess in his youth and had an
Elo rating of 1800.
Similar to his character Hiro Nakamura, Oka also collects
manga
Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...
. He co-produced the
2017 American adaptation of the manga series ''
Death Note''. He also founded the video game studio Mobius Digital Games, mainly known for its game ''
Outer Wilds''.
He has earned the rank of
black belt in
kendō
is a modern Japanese martial art, descended from kenjutsu (one of the old Japanese martial arts, swordsmanship), that uses bamboo swords ( shinai) as well as protective armor (bōgu). Today, it is widely practiced within Japan and has spre ...
(Japanese fencing).
[Heroes Season 1 dvd, stunt special feature]
Filmography
Television
Film
Video games
Digital effects artist
Audiobook
References
External links
*
Daily Telegraph ArticleNY Times Article* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070225041811/http://www.browndailyherald.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=c4bc59e7-8e12-4622-a464-360b66ce0e97 Brown Daily Herald by Alissa Cerny 9/18/06 "Brown alum snags big role in NBC series 'Heroes'"]
Time magazine cover – August 31, 1987 (Masi Oka is to the farthest left)Nichi Bei Times InterviewSan Francisco Chronicle Article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oka, Masi
1974 births
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
American kendoka
American male actors of Japanese descent
American male film actors
American male television actors
American film actors of Asian descent
Brown University alumni
Harvard-Westlake School alumni
Japanese emigrants to the United States
Japanese male film actors
Living people
Male actors from Los Angeles
Male actors from New York City
Male actors from Tokyo
Special effects people
Industrial Light & Magic people