Harry Kim, Operations/Communications Officer (Garrett Wang) [b. 15 December 1968]

Garrett Wang is Ops/Communication Officer Harry Kim on UPN's popular series "Star Trek: Voyager." Harry boarded the Starship U.S.S. Voyager after a stellar academic career at the Starfleet Academy. He eagerly embraces the challenges of space exploration while still a bit nervous about living up to expectations.

Regarding his career, Wang comments, "My goal now is to do the best job possible playing Harry Kim and to begin repaying my parents for the financial support they have given me throughout the years."

Born in Riverside, California, to Chinese immigrant parents, Wang spent his formative years in Indiana, Bermuda and Memphis while his father pursued successive careers first as a plant pathologist and then as a wholesale craft importer.

When Wang returned to the west coast, he attended the University of California at Los Angeles where he majored in Asian Studies and "dabbled" in theatre. He decided to drop out during his last quarter to star in a local theatre production of "Porcelain" for which he garnered critical acclaim.

Wang then made a deal with his parents. "I asked them to help me out financially for two years so that I could focus only on acting. After that, I'd pay them back every cent. Later I realized that the timetable I had set was probably very unrealistic," Wang says.

Maybe so, but in the first year he landed a series of national commercials and a guest star spot on "All American Girl" starring Margaret Cho. Shortly thereafter, he was cast in "Star Trek: Voyager."

Most recently, Wang completed a starring role in the feature film "100 Per Cent," an action/comedy/love story directed by Eric Koyanagi who shares Wang's desire to abolish Asian stereotypes. Wang comments, "I am one out of only a handful of Asian-American males in the past four decades who have appeared as a series regular, so I feel a particular responsibility. Hollywood established the Asian stereotype and I hope to be instrumental in abolishing it."

Wang has an uncanny ear for language and dialects and entertains friends and co-workers with his impersonations of "Star Trek: Voyager" characters, including Captain Kathryn Janeway.

7/98

Images and text Copyright 1997-2000 United Paramount Network

This page downloaded on Saturday, 18-Jan-2025 13:39:00 GMT

Last modified on Sunday, 12-Sep-2010 23:22:50 CDT.