Tony Le-Nguyen is a Vietnamese-Australian actor, filmmaker and teacher. Le-Nguyen is perhaps best known for his role as Tiger in the 1992 Australian drama film ''

Romper Stomper ''Romper Stomper'' is a 1992 Australian drama film written and directed by Geoffrey Wright in his feature film directorial debut. The film stars Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie, Tony Le-Nguyen and Colin Chin. The film tells ...

''.

Early life

Le-Nguyen was born in as Lê Thiện Toàn Sa Đéc,

Mekong Delta The Mekong Delta ( vi, Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, lit=Nine Dragon River Delta or simply vi, Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, lit=Mekong River Delta, label=none), also known as the Western Region ( vi, Miền Tây, links=no) or South-weste ...

, Vietnam on 3 October 1968. In 1978, Le-Nguyen and his family migrated from Vietnam to

Melbourne, Victoria Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung–Taungurung language, Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the St ...

, Australia, as

refugees A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

, when he was ten years old. In 1985 he changed his name to Tony Lee as he began working as an actor.

Career

Le-Nguyen is the first Vietnamese-Australian to be appointed as an Official Prison Visitor to Port Phillip and

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...

Correctional Centres by the Minister for Corrections, the Honourable

Andre Haermeyer Andre Haermeyer (born 20 February 1956, in Oberhausen, West Germany) is a former Australian politician. He was the Labor Party member for Kororoit in the Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house ...

in 2003 to act as an independent voice for the prison system in Victoria. Le-Nguyen played Tiger in Geoffrey Wright’s 1992 Australian drama film ''

''. He has also appeared in other television productions including: '' Stingers'', '' SeaChange'', ''

Raw FM ''Raw FM'' was an Australian Television series produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that aired for one season of thirteen episodes between November 1997 and February 1998. ''Raw FM'' was about an independent radio station of the ...

'', ''

G.P. ''G.P.'' is an Australian television series produced by Roadshow, Coote & Carroll for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the series was broadcast for 8 seasons between 1989 and 1996. Synopsis The series, screened on the ABC, is set arou ...

'', '' Fast Forward'', '' All Together Now'', '' Embassy'', ''

Secrets Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controvers ...

'', '' The Damnation of Harvey McHugh'', ''

Paradise Beach ''Paradise Beach'' is an Australian television series made by Village Roadshow Pictures. It was made in association with America's Genesis Entertainment which later merged with New World Television for the Nine Network, and aired between 1993 ...

'', '' Australia’s most wanted'' & '' Sword of Honour'' Between 1986 and 1987, Le-Nguyen toured with

Mary Coustas Mary Coustas (born 16 September 1964) is an Australian actress, comedian and television personality and writer. Originally from Melbourne, Coustas often performs as the character "Effie", a stereotypical second-generation Greek Australian prone ...

Handspan Theatre Handspan Theatre was a Melbourne-based puppetry and visual theatre company that operated between 1977 and 2002. History Handspan Theatre was founded as a cooperative by Ken Evans, Andrew Hansen, Helen Rickards, Maeve Vella, Peter J. Wilson and ...

’s production ''A Change of Face'' written b
Andrea Lemon
and directed b
Carmelina di Guglielmo
He worked on the

Victorian Opera Victorian Opera is an opera company based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The company was founded in 2005 by the Victorian Government as a replacement for the Victoria State Opera. It commenced operations in January 2006 with Richard Gill as ...

1990 production of ''Madama Butterfly'' and performed i
Theatreworks
1993 production of Titus, directed by David Pledger an
Robert Draffin
In May 1994, he founded Australian Vietnamese Youth Media with the support of Huu Tran and David Everist, the theatre coordinator at th
Footscray Community Arts Centre
The company received its first funding from the Queens Trust in 1995 to produce ''Chay Vong Vong'', a play he wrote and directed with the Vietnamese Community in Footscray, Melbourne. The following year, this organisation received funding from the

Australia Council for the Arts The Australia Council for the Arts, commonly known as the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announced in 1967 as the Austra ...

and the Sidney Myer Foundation to re-stage ''Chay Vong Vong'' as a fully professional production at the Napier Street Theatre, in South Melbourne. In 1998 he was commissioned by Urban Theatre Projects to write and direct ''"Chay Vong Vong'"'' with the Vietnamese Community in Sydney, Australia. Le-Nguyen has directed and produced such professional and community productions as ''A Time of Your Life''
St. Martins Youth Theatre
and Flemington Community Centre 1996, ''Now I Lay Me Down'', La Mama 1997, ''Taboo'', Next Wave Festival 1998, ''"Aussie Bia Om'', 200
Fringe Festival
and directed segments for th
BigWest Festival
in 1997 and 2000, Children of the Dragon 2005, Silent 2007 He co-directed ''Worlds Apart'' in 1996 with Gary McKechnie, a half-hour Television drama about generation conflict within a Vietnamese Australian family. ''Worlds Apart'' was first screened on SBS Television in December 1997. Le-Nguyen began teaching drama at Blackbox, Hanoi from December, 2013 and directed his first Vietnamese 30 minutes drama "Mơ Chua" (Sour Apricots) in 2015. He is the director o
The Drama Lab
Hanoi which he founded in 2021 and currently teaching life-skills using drama fo
KOTO
a not-for-profit social enterprise that empowers at-risk and disadvantaged youth in Vietnam founded by Jimmy Pham.

Education

Le-Nguyen studied Television Production at

RMIT RMIT University, officially the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,, section 4(b) is a public research university in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1887 by Francis Ormond, RMIT began as a night school offering classes in art, scienc ...

in 1989 and completed his Bachelor of Arts (Drama/Community Development) in 1998 and Diploma of Education in 2000 at Victoria University.

Awards

He was awarded the Community Cultural Development Fellowship by the

in 2000.

Filmography

Films

* ''

'' (1992) * ''A Royal Commission Into the Australian Economy'' (1993) (TV film)

TV series

* '' Sword of Honour'' (1986) (1 episode) * '' Embassy'' (1990) (1 episode) * '' Boys from the Bush'' (1991) * '' All Together Now'' (1991) (1 episode) * ''English at Work'' (1991) (1 episode) * ''

'' (1993) (1 episode) * ''

'' (1994) (1 episode) * '' The Damnation of Harvey McHugh'' (1994) (1 episode) * ''

'' (1995) (1 episode) * ''

'' (1997) (1 episode) * '' Stingers'' (2000) (1 episode) * '' SeaChange'' (2000) (1 episode)

References

External links

The Drama Lab
*
Youtube Le-Nguyen ProductionsTony Le-Nguyen BlogRefugee Council of Australia

Australia Council for the Arts.The Blackbox Theatre VietnamCuộc Hành Trình-Tìm Kiếm Những Giấc MơThế hệ thứ Hai (Bài 68): Đạo diễn Tony Lê Nguyễn và duyên nợ với nghệ thuậtFulbright University Vietnam’s Bridge Program
{{DEFAULTSORT:Le-Nguyen, Tony 1968 births 20th-century Australian male actors 20th-century Australian male writers 20th-century Vietnamese male actors 20th-century Vietnamese writers 21st-century Australian male actors 21st-century Australian male writers 21st-century Vietnamese male actors 21st-century Vietnamese writers Australian film producers Australian male film actors Australian male television actors Australian people of Vietnamese descent Australian screenwriters Film directors from Melbourne Living people Male actors from Melbourne RMIT University alumni Victoria University, Melbourne alumni Vietnamese emigrants to Australia Vietnamese film directors Vietnamese male film actors Vietnamese male television actors Vietnamese male writers