Reggie Lee (actor)

In this Philippine name, the middle name or maternal family name is Telmo and the surname or paternal family name is Valdez.

Reggie Lee
Reggie Lee in 2007
Born	Reggie Telmo Valdez October 4, 1975 (1975-10-04) (age 49)[1] Quezon City, Philippines
Nationality	American • Filipino
Education	Padua Franciscan High School
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1996–present

Reggie Telmo Valdez (born October 4, 1975), known professionally as Reggie Lee, is an American ^[2] film and television actor. On television, he has played William "Bill" Kim on Prison Break and Sergeant Drew Wu on Grimm. In film, he has played Tai Huang in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, GCPD Officer Ross in The Dark Knight Rises and Lance Nguyen in The Fast and the Furious.

Early life

Valdez was born in Quezon City, the Philippines,^[2] to Zenaida Telmo and Jesus Espiritu Valdez.^[3] Although fluent in English, he also speaks Tagalog. At the age of five, he moved with his family to the Cleveland, Ohio area, including Parma and Strongsville. While still a student, he performed in shows at the Greenbrier Theatre (now the Cassidy Theatre) in Parma Heights and was an intern at the Cleveland Play House. He graduated from Padua Franciscan High School in Parma.^[4]

Although accepted to Harvard, he instead decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue acting.^[5] He later changed his last name from Valdez to Lee, stating in a 2001 interview that "they kept calling me in for Hispanic roles, and I'm a far cry from Hispanic";^[4] he took the name Lee from his grandparents.^[1]

Career

In 1992, at the age of 17, Lee moved to Los Angeles, where he joined a national tour of Miss Saigon.^[1] He later worked as a dancer for Prince on the MTV Video Music Awards and toured nationally with the musical Heartstrings.^[1] He was in the original company of the 1994 Broadway revival of Carousel.^[1] In 1997, he received a Drama-Logue Award for his performance in F.O.B. at East West Players, an Asian-American theatre organization in Los Angeles.^[1] With his role garnering critical acclaim, he also starred in their production of Carry the Tiger to the Mountain.^[1]

Since starring as Lance Nguyen in The Fast and the Furious, Lee appeared as Tai Huang in the Walt Disney Pictures film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. He has played Secret Service Special Agent Bill Kim in the FOX drama Prison Break, a character he describes as "a guilty pleasure to play, wonderfully complex and devious". He appeared in Chinaman's Chance, about which he said "It's an important story that definitely needs to be told and humanized. Plus I get to play pretend in the Old West. How great is that?"^[6]

In 2010, he guest-starred as Tom in the NBC series Persons Unknown.

In 2012, he played Ross, a Gotham City police officer in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises.

From 2011 to 2017, he played Desk Sergeant Drew Wu in the NBC supernatural police drama Grimm.

In 2018, for NCIS: New Orleans, he appeared as Assistant Special Agent in Charge Steven Thompson.^[7] He previously appeared in an unrelated role in an episode of NCIS. In 2021, Blogtalk with MJ Racadio named him one of the "75 Most Influential Filipino-Americans".^[8]

Personal life

Lee has two younger brothers, musician Nathan and comic book artist R.V. Valdez.^[4][9]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1999	The Big Blind
2000	Southstreet Lullaby	Mahler Greeter
	Psycho Beach Party	Dancer
	Drift	Ryan	As R.T. Lee
2001	XCU: Extreme Close Up	Huy Phan
	The Fast and the Furious	Lance Nguyen
	The Parlor	Slappy Sue	Short film
2002	Black Hole	Justin
	Reality School	Student
	The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest	Suit
2003	Masked and Anonymous	Armed Man
	Net Games	Laurence
2004	Frankenfish	Anton
2005	Amateur	Ron Harper
2006	Dimples	Dr. Ross Hammer
	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	Hadras
2007	Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End	Tai Huang
2008	I Am Somebody: No Chance in Hell	Sing	Also known as Chinaman's Chance
	Tropic Thunder	Byong
2009	Drag Me to Hell	Stu Rubin
	Star Trek	Test Administrator Kobayashi Maru
2010	Life as We Know It	Alan Burke
2011	Crazy, Stupid, Love	Officer Huang
2012	Safe	Quan Chang
	Here Comes the Boom	Mr. De La Cruz
	The Dark Knight Rises	GCPD Officer Ross
2019	Disappearance	Detective Park
2021	Sweet Girl	Dr. Wu

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	Diagnosis: Murder	Kim Ho	Episode: "The ABC's of Murder"
1997	Dangerous Minds	Student	Episode: "Teach, Don't Touch"
	Moloney	Ramon	Episode: "Loves and Lost"
1998	Babylon 5	Chen Hikaru	Episode: "The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father"
	The Wayans Bros.	Reporter #2	Episode: "Pops' Campaign"
	ER	Christian	Episode: "Split Second"
	Sister, Sister	Lawson Hicks	Episode: "We Are Family"
	Hyperion Bay	Lives-on-Pizza	Episode: "Family Business"
	Mad About You	Gardner's Assistant	Episode: "Weekend in L.A."
	Seven Days	Duncan	Episode: "Shadow Play"
1999	Beverly Hills, 90210	Richard	Episode: "The Following Options"
	Two of a Kind	Waiter	Episode: "When a Man Loves a Woman"
	Sons of Thunder	Bad Guy	Episode: "Thunder by Your Side"
2000	Walker, Texas Ranger	Lee Chan	Episode: "The General's Return"
	Chicago Hope	Sam	Episode: "Have I Got a Deal for You"
2001	The Ellen Show	Kwan	Episode: "Pilot"
	Philly	Brian Chin	2 episodes
2001–2002	Judging Amy	Dr. Oliver Lee
2001–2003	The Division	Officer Jim Chang	4 episodes
2002	Strong Medicine	Dr. Nakashima	Episode: "House Calls"
2003	Luis	Zhing Zhang	Main role
2005	Blind Justice	Don Yun	Episode: "Seoul Man"
2006	Night Stalker	Stanley Kim	Episode: "What's the Frequency, Colchak?"
2006–2007	Prison Break	William "Bill" Kim	recurring, 16 episodes
2008	NCIS	Jonathan Chow	Episode: "Stakeout"
2010	No Ordinary Family	Dr. Francis Chiles	5 episodes
	Persons Unknown	Tom	recurring, 7 episodes
2010–2021	American Dad!	Hideki Yoshida (voice)	5 episodes
2011	White Collar	Ambassador Kyi	Episode: "What Happens in Burma"
2011–2017	Grimm	Sgt. Drew Wu	Main role
2017	Hawaii Five-0	Joey Kang	Episode: "E uhi wale no 'a'ole e nalo, he imu puhi"
2017–2019	Brooklyn Nine-Nine	Dr. Ronald Yee	2 episodes
2018	LA to Vegas	Lewis	Episode: "The Affair"
	NCIS: New Orleans	Special Agent Steven Thompson	2 episodes
2018–2019	Fresh Off the Boat	Julius
2019–2021; 2023	All Rise	Thomas Choi	Recurring role (Season 1), Main role (Season 2), Guest role (Season 3)
2021	The Rookie	CIA Agent^[citation needed] Mike Weston	Episode: "Red Hot"
2022	Law and Order: Special Victims Unit	Paul Lee	Episode: "Did You Believe in Miracles?"
	The Lincoln Lawyer	Angelo Soto	Recurring role
2024	CSI: Vegas[10]	Undersheriff Zhao

Video games

Year	Title	Role
2007	Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End	Tai Huang

References

1. Lo, Ricardo F. (May 23, 2007). "Reggie Lee: From Q.C. to Hollywood". The Philippine Star. Archived from the original on 2013-04-19. Retrieved April 23, 2012. That was 1992 and he was 18.
2. "The Filipino-American actor in 'Pirates 3' is from Quezon City". Manila Bulletin. June 16, 2007. Retrieved April 23, 2012.
3. Villagomez, Kaye (October 7, 2008). "Pinoy actor talks about breaking barriers in Hollywood". Manila Bulletin. Retrieved April 23, 2012.
4. Palmer, Debbie (September 13, 2001). "Actor passes up Harvard: Padua grad trades college for leading roles in TV series, movies". Cleveland Sun News. Archived from the original on December 30, 2001.
5. "Reggie Lee".^{[dead link‍]}
6. "The Filipino-American actor in 'Pirates 3' is from Quezon City". Manila Bulletin. June 16, 2007. Retrieved August 28, 2012.
7. Petski, Denise (20 August 2018). "'NCIS: New Orleans' Casts Reggie Lee; Samantha Sloyan Joins 'SEAL Team'". Retrieved 6 October 2018.
8. "Comedian Jo Koy leads 75 Most Influential Filipino Americans list". goodnewspilipinas.com. Retrieved 2022-11-06.
9. "About Me". RVValdez.com. Archived from the original on July 4, 2015. Retrieved April 23, 2012.
10. "CSI: Vegas Adds Reggie Lee for Season 3 (Exclusive)". TVLine.com. Retrieved November 28, 2023.

External links

• Reggie Lee at IMDb
• Reggie Lee at FEARnet