Randall Duk Kim

Career

Kim was a founder, artistic director, and mainstay lead actor at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin, which he co-founded with Anne Occhiogrosso and Charles Bright. Since he was eighteen, Kim has portrayed a wide variety of roles on the stage, focusing upon Western classical works, including Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, and Molière. Kim also starred in the first play written by an Asian-American to be produced professionally in New York, The Chickencoop Chinaman by Frank Chin, which was mounted by The American Place Theatre in 1972. Kim starred in Chin's second play, The Year of the Dragon in 1974. Despite his theatrical prowess, Kim is perhaps best known for his role as the Keymaker in the film The Matrix Reloaded. He was one of the first Asian-American actors to play a leading role in an American production of a Shakespeare play when he played the title role in The New York Public Theater's 1974 production of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. He has spent most of his career in theatre. He also played the title role in Hamlet at the Guthrie Theatre in 1978-79.

He played Kralaholme in the 1996 revival of The King and I on Broadway, later succeeding to the leading role. Other Broadway credits include Golden Child and the revised version of Flower Drum Song, both written by David Henry Hwang. He voiced Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda. In 2008 he played Dashiell Kim in an episode of the television series Fringe, created by J.J. Abrams. He also played Grandpa Gohan in the 2009 live action adaptation of Dragonball Evolution and a tattoo master in Ninja Assassin.