Katie Leung

Katie Liu Leung (b. August 8, 1987) is a Scottish voice actress. Famous for voicing Cho Chang in Harry Potter, she is also known for portraying Jada Lim in The Little Ladies, Kaitlyn in the cartoon Arcane and Ash in the science fiction show The Peripheral. In 2012, Leung made her first appearance on stage in the musical Wild Swans and has since appeared in other stage productions. Leung has an interest in the arts, having studied art at the University of the Arts London and has photography degrees from Edinburgh College of Art and theater from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

## Early life

Leung's birth was in Dundee in Scotland even though Motherwell is misidentified as her location of birth cause she spent her childhood there. She attended high school at Hamilton College. She is of Cantonese descent: her dad, Peter Leung was a Hong Kongese businessman who opened a company in Glasgow and her mom, Kar Wai Li was a Hong Kongese banker. Leung's parents divorced when she was 3 and she lived in Scotland with her daddy, adoptive mother and siblings after her mother moved back to Hong Kong.

## Profession

### 2005-2011: Harry Potter and other early roles

Leung's father saw an advertisement for a *Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* casting call, and suggested she should try out. She waited four hours in line for a five-minute audition, despite feeling she had little likelihood of obtaining the role. Two weeks later, she was called back for a workshop and was cast as Cho Chang, beating over 3,000 other girls for the part. In retrospect, she stated in an interview with the *Daily Record* that her Scottish accent probably gave her an advantage in the casting, as the casting director asked the girls who attended the audition, "Is there anyone here from Scotland?", to which only Leung raised her hand.

In a 2011 interview, Leung said her fondest memory of the *Harry Potter* experience was the first audition, because both her parents, who were separated at the time, went with her. "It was a really nice moment because my parents hadn't seen each other for a long, long time," Leung recalled. In an effort to heavily promote *Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire*, Warner Bros. sent Leung to China in the film's second week of release, in an atypical move toward a market that was not used to frequent celebrity visits at the time.

She reprised her role in the subsequent films in the series, most notably *Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix*, in which her character had the distinction of being Harry Potter's first romance. As a result, Leung and Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) shared an on-screen kiss that received much media coverage. While Leung was greeted warmly by most fans of the series, some fans, jealous of Cho's relationship with Harry in the film, created an "I Hate Katie" website in response. Additionally, many racist messages posted on fan websites were upsetting to Leung at the time. In March 2021, Leung opened up about the racist abuse she had received from fans while filming *Harry Potter*. Appearing on an episode of the *Chinese Chippy Girl* podcast, she revealed that she was told by her publicists to deny what was happening if anyone asked.

Leung's voice was used in the video games *Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* and *Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince*.

Leung was named as Scotland's most stylish female and as the hottest Scotswoman in 2007 by *The Scotsman*. She has also been featured in *Teen Vogue* and the *Evening Standard*. In July 2007, she was cast by Gold Label Records, a subsidiary of EMI in Hong Kong, to be the female lead in the music video *Love Coming Home* *(愛回家)* by Leo Ku. Leung filmed the video in London while promoting the new *Harry Potter* film. Ku described Leung's acting as "professional" and "mature".

In her first role outside of *Harry Potter*, Leung played Hsui Tai in the episode "Cat Among the Pigeons" of ITV1's *Agatha Christie's Poirot,* which premiered on 21 September 2008.

### 2011–present: Continued stage and screen roles

Following the end of the *Harry Potter* films, Leung said she was uncertain if she wanted to continue a career in acting. However, after attending a drama course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, she was inspired. In December 2011, she was awarded the role of Jung Chang as her debut stage role in Chang's autobiographical play *Wild Swans*. In comparing film to live performances, Leung said, "The obvious challenge is of course getting it right the first time, which is weirdly exciting for me." The play made its world premiere in Cambridge, Massachusetts in February 2012, before returning to Motherwell.

In June 2012, it was confirmed that Leung would star in the Channel 4 four-part drama series *Run* as leading character Ying, an undocumented Chinese immigrant who sells pirate DVDs and stolen phones on the streets of Brixton in the hope of making a life for herself in the UK, but who first must pay her debts to the Snakeheads who smuggled her into Britain.

In 2013, Leung starred alongside Vera Chok in *The World of Extreme Happiness*, a play about the world of migrant workers in China's rapidly emerging modern era. In the production, staged at The Shed at the National Theatre, she played the role of Sunny, a female migrant worker. Leung next appeared in an episode of the BBC crime drama series *Father Brown*.

In April 2014, it was announced that Leung was to play the role of Mei, a first-born Chinese girl adopted by an American mother and British father, in the TV miniseries *One Child*. In the story, her character is asked to return to her birthplace, Guangzhou, when her birth mother desperately seeks her assistance in saving her son. The series was produced by BBC Drama production for BBC Two and was co-produced with Sundance TV. It was scheduled to begin production in May 2014 in London and Hong Kong, and aired in February 2016. Leung received praise from Catherine Gee of *The Daily Telegraph*, who called her performance "beautifully understated".

In late 2016, Leung appeared in the Tony Kushner play *The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures* (*iHo*) at the Hampstead Theatre in London. In 2017, she co-starred with Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan in *The Foreigner*, playing Fan, Chan's character's daughter. This was followed by a supporting role as Lau Chen in the ITV drama *Strangers*, also known by the title *White Dragon*.

In June 2021, Leung narrated the short audio story *Off Course* for Bibliophone. The story was the winner of a charity writing competition which raised money for the Scottish Refugee Council.

Leung has subsequently appeared in recurring roles as DC Blair Ferguson in the Alibi series *Annika*, the voice of Caitlyn in the Netflix series *Arcane*, and Ash in the Amazon Prime Video series *The Peripheral*.

She is also attached to a forthcoming Paramount+ series adaptation of Simon Beckett's novel *The Chemistry of Death*, with her role currently unspecified. She also played Jada Lim in The Little Ladies.

## Personal life

Leung delayed ideas to go to art university to film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. During thi period, Leung said she was undecided about pursuing an acting profession after Harry Potter and wished to attend college to study art and design. In 2007, she supported The Prince's Trust charity by launching a kids' art competition and also donated one of her artworks which were auctioned. Leung has also expressed a passion for photography. In 2009, she donated a photo to Sightsavers International's I:Click 2009 competition, with benefits going to combat blindness in poor countries.

While appearing in *Wild Swans*, Leung worked to complete her photography degree at Edinburgh College of Art. Afterwards, she attended the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, where she completed the BA in Acting course.

On 19 August 2018, Leung participated in the wedding of another former *Harry Potter* cast member, Afshan Azad.

In January 2022, Leung's essay "Getting into Character" was published in the book *East Side Voices: Essays Celebrating East & Southeast Asian Identity in Britain*. In her essay, Leung wrote about how her ethnicity impacted her experiences growing up and her acting career.

She speaks fluent Cantonese and some Mandarin.

## Awards

**2006**

* Outstanding Newcomer Award, Asian Excellence Awards (Top 4)
* Young Scots Award (nominee)

**2007**

* Scotland's Most Stylish Female
* No. 80 on the Cosmogirl's Hot 100 List

**2008**

* Best Kiss Nominee 2008 MTV Movie Awards US (alongside Daniel Radcliffe)

**2014**

* BAFTA Breakthrough Brits 2014