Kenneth Ma

Early life

The youngest of a three child family, he has older twin sisters. He attended Delia International School before immigrating with his family to Vancouver, Canada in 1992. His father, who worked as a mechanical engineer, would travel back and forth between Hong Kong and Vancouver for work. At first his family lived in Richmond before settling in Port Coquitlam. After attending one semester at Douglas College, he transferred to University of British Columbia majoring in Mechanical engineering. During college Ma joined an acting troupe that would perform sketches. After graduating from college in 1998, Ma and his entire family decided to return to Hong Kong.

Career

When Ma returned to Hong Kong he initially worked at a glass manufacture as a quality surveillance inspector but found his job boring. Hoping to find something more of his interest he sent out over 70 resumes but only received a response from TVB for an interview notice to their 14th Artist Training Class. His starting salary at TVB was a meager estimated HK$4000.00 a month, one third of his former job salary, but since he found acting to be more suitable for him he decided to join TVB.

In the beginning his career at TVB was often playing supporting roles as extras, passers-by and fill ins. One of Ma's early roles was playing the giant cockroach Sui Kung in Dayo Wong's music video "Blue Sky". However within 5 years since graduating from TVB's training course the company started to promote him when he was chosen as one of the S4's for 2004's drama Triumph in the Skies and later as one of the six sui sangs to be the "Olympic 6" (the others being Sammul Chan, Ron Ng, Bosco Wong, Raymond Lam and Lai Lok-yi) during the 2004 Athens Olympic games. In 2006, he won the Most Improved Actor award at the 2006 TVB Anniversary Awards. He was handed his first leading role in the drama serial Survivor's Law II opposite Hong Kong singer Ella Koon. The drama aired in 2008 and achieved favorable ratings and reception. Ma's role in The Hippocratic Crush, earned him awards both from Malaysia (Most Favorite Leading Actor) and Hong Kong (Most Favorite Male Character).

In 2013 after starring in Triumph in the Skies II, Ma caught the eye of international star Jackie Chan and was invited to star in the romantic comedy Fate Is a Game.

Personal life

Ma lives with his parents in a 900 square feet flat located in Tai Koo City, Hong Kong. He has said that his future wife must get along with his parents and be able to live together with them.

He is known to commute to work via mass transit even though he owns a car.

During his youth Ma and his mother were Leslie Cheung's fans. Ma's mother even named her western name after Cheung's hit song "Monica". At age 14 Ma was featured in Cheung's 1988 Pepsi commercial.

Ma is an avid soccer fan. His favorite teams are Real Madrid, Manchester United, and AC Milan.

During his early years at TVB Ma has said he had a crush on actress Sharon Chan and had even considered pursuing her but gave up on the idea due to his meager salary and Chan already having a boyfriend at that time.

Out of all of his rumored relationships Ma has only admitted to dating fellow TVB actress Nancy Wu. Ma admitted to the relationship due to tabloids depicting Wu negatively in the press. The two became close while collaborating in "Strictly Come Dancing" and dated for less than a year.