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B.D. WONG’s first book, Following
Foo (the electronic adventures of the
Chestnut Man), published by
HarperCollins, will be available May
13th wherever books are sold. It
chronicles the dramatic and theatrical
E-mail correspondence he initiated with
nearly a thousand friends, family,
loved ones (and even “forwarded
strangers”) after the extremely
premature birth of identical twin sons
brought his family to the foreign and
terrifying environment of the Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit at a world-class
teaching hospital.
Mr. Wong can currently be seen on NBC’s
Law & Order: Special Victims
Unit as forensic psychiatrist Dr.
George Huang. Series regular roles
include HBO’s first one-hour drama,
OZ, where Mr. Wong played Father
Ray Mukada, Oswald Penitentiary’s
conflicted and beleaguered prison
chaplain. He has guest starred on X-
Files, Sesame Street, and
Chicago Hope, as well as
appearing in HBO’s film version of
Randy Shilts’ book And the Band
Played On. He also co-starred with
comic Margaret Cho on her series All-
American Girl as a member of
television’s first Asian-American
family when the ABC situation comedy
aired in 1994.
Recently, Mr. Wong received an Outer
Critics Circle Award nomination for his
portrayal of General Gong Fei in the
Drama Dept’s production of Shanghai
Moon. He made his
Broadway debut in M. Butterfly,
a play by David Henry Hwang. His work,
in arguably the breakthrough
performance of that season, earned him
the Outer Critics Circle Award, Theatre
World Award, Drama Desk Award, Clarence
Derwent Award, and the coveted
Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award. No
other actor has won all five of these
awards for one role in a Broadway
play. In addition to his substantial
work Off-Broadway and in American
regional theatre, he received critical
acclaim for his performance in the
Broadway revival of You’re a Good
Man, Charlie Brown as the
intellectual, blanket-dependent Linus.
B.D. Wong has worked on more than
twenty films, among them: Jurassic
Park, The Freshman, The Ref, Executive
Decision, and the current
CastleRock release, The Salton
Sea. Moviegoers may perhaps
remember him most vividly for his
diverse work in Seven Years in
Tibet, Father of the Bride
(Parts I and II), and as the voice
of the heroic “Shang” in Disney’s
animated hit, Mulan.
Mr. Wong feels that living day to day
in the trenches of a challenging career
as an actor (a vocation in an industry
fraught with racism-based rejection)
has forced him to not only empower
himself and his own self esteem, but
has helped him to be facile and
articulate about the issues of racial
self-image, Asian-American parental
pressure, and the “model minority
myth.” He enjoys a second career
traveling to colleges, universities,
high schools, and diversity-themed
conferences to share his point of view.
Among other awards he has received are
those from the AALDEF (Asian-American
Legal Defense and Education Fund),
AAPAA (Association of Asian-Pacific
American Artists), the Coro Foundation,
the Chinese Performing Arts Foundation,
the Asian AIDS Project, the Asian
Pacific Council, the Chinese Culture
Foundation of San Francisco, the
Manhattan Borough Community College,
and the Crane House of Louisville,
Kentucky. He received a 2001 “Ammy”
Award, sponsored by A Magazine, for
Best Male Actor in a Televised
Production for his work on OZ.
B.D. Wong was born and raised in San
Francisco, and currently resides in New
York City.
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