Benedict Wong

**Benedict Wong** (born July 3, 1971) is an English actor.

## Early Life

Wong was born in Eccles, Greater Manchester, the son of Hong Kong immigrant parents who had travelled through Ireland before settling in England. He was brought up in Eccles, and attended Salford City College (then called De La Salle Sixth Form College) in the surrounding area of Salford. He then took a two-year performing arts course at Salford City College.

## Career

Wong's first role was in a 1993 BBC Radio play called Kai Mei Sauce, written by Kevin Wong. He appeared as Errol Spears alongside Sean Lock in the situation comedy 15 Storeys High, and as Franklin Fu in the second series of Look Around You. In 2003, he was nominated at the British Independent Film Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Guo Yi in Dirty Pretty Things.

In 2007, Wong starred in the feature film Grow Your Own. Wong went on to appear in the second episode of Series 4 of the Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd, playing the character Prime, a previous Countdown contestant who had won the sixteenth Countdown teapot when he was known as Harold Tong. Wong also appeared in the film Shanghai playing the character Juso Kita and the BBC series Spirit Warriors in the role of Li.

In 2012, Wong appeared in the Ridley Scott film Prometheus as ship's pilot Ravel. In 2013, Wong was cast in the lead role of #aww: The Arrest of Ai WeiWei at the Hampstead Theatre. Shortly after, the Almeida Theatre announced that Wong had joined the cast of the play Chimerica as Zhang Lin. Also in 2013, Wong played the role of gangster Lau in the BBC Two comedy-drama The Wrong Mans. He was nominated for the West End Frame Award for Best Dramatic Performance for his role in Chimerica.

In 2014, Wong played the role of Kublai Khan in the Netflix series Marco Polo, which on 7 January 2015 was renewed by Netflix for a 10-episode second series.

The next year, he appeared in another Ridley Scott science fiction film, playing the director of the Jet Propulsion Lab, Bruce Ng in The Martian. In 2016, he co-starred as Wong in the superhero film Doctor Strange and later reprised the role in Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Spider-Man: No Way Home. He will once again return in the role in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Wong appeared in "Hated in the Nation", an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror, playing Shaun Li, an agent with the National Crime Agency in 2016. In 2017 he voiced the character of Alex Yu in the Arkane Studios game Prey and starred in "2036: Nexus Dawn", a promotional short film prequel to Blade Runner 2049 directed by Luke Scott and co-starring Jared Leto. He appeared as the scientist Lomax in the 2018 science fiction horror film Annihilation.

In 2019, he performed the voice of the Skeksis general skekVar in the Netflix series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and the voice of Bull in the film Lady and the Tramp. In 2020, he appeared as a Necromancer in an episode of the FX television series What We Do in the Shadows. In 2021, Wong voiced the warrior giant Tong in the Disney animated film Raya and the Last Dragon. In 2021, he was nominated for an Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance as Kyo in Nine Days.

## Personal Life

Wong is a lifelong fan of Manchester United FC.