John Cho

John Cho (Korean birthname: Cho Yo-Han; American full name: John Yohan Cho) is one of the most prominent and versatile Korean American movie actors in the new century, managing to appear as a star or co-star in both comedies (the Harold & Kumar series) and sci-fi (the Star Trek series).

Cho launched his movie career with a lead role in writers-director Quentin Lee’s and Justin Lin’s black comedy, Shopping for Fangs (1997), and quickly followed this with a supporting role in the Barry Levinson-directed satire hit, Wag the Dog (1997), co-starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, William H. Macy, Kirsten Dunst, and Willie Nelson. Cho co-starred with Amy Hill and Soon-Tek Oh in director/writer/producer Chris Chan Lee’s comedy-drama, Yellow (1997), premiering at the Slamdance Film Festival, and then was cast in a supporting role in Sam Mendes’ Oscar-winning drama, American Beauty (1999).

Cho has had a remarkable run of movies with brothers and filmmakers Paul and Chris Weitz, who regularly cast Cho in supporting roles in most of their movies, including the smash hit franchise of American Pie (1999), American Pie 2 (2001), American Wedding (2003), and American Reunion (2012); Down to Earth (2001); In Good Company (2004); See This Movie (2004), which the Weitz brothers executive produced and in which Cho co-starred with Seth Meyers; American Dreamz (2005); Grandma (2015), staring Lily Tomlin and Julia Garner; the Judy Greer-directed A Happening of Monumental Proportions (2017), produced by the Weitz brothers as producers; and Cho finally starred in a Weitz movie with Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing’s AI-themed horror movie, Afraid (2024), directed, written and produced by Chris Weitz (with producer Jason Blum), with Katherine Waterston and Keith Carradine.

John Cho landed supporting parts in both the Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy comedy, Bowfinger (1999) and Ivan Reitman’s sci-fi comedy, Evolution (2001), before he was cast in a significant supporting role in the Chinese American drama, Pavilion of Women (2001), based on Pearl S. Buck’s novel, and starring Willem Dafoe and Koh Chieng Mun. Cho reunited with director/writer/producer/editor Justin Lin as a co-star in the crime drama, Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and released by MTV Films and Paramount Pictures.

Cho then played a film director in the Shawn Levy-directed teen comedy, Big Fat Liar (2002), as well as an emissary in Steven Soderbergh’s English-language remake for 20^th Century Fox of Andrei Tarkovsky’s sci-fi epic, Solaris (2002), starring George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Davies, and Viola Davis. Cho enjoyed one of his most acclaimed and popular characters as Harold opposite Kal Penn’s Kumar in the energetic buddy-comedy series written by Hayden Schlossberg and Jon Hurwitz, starting with Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), and continuing with Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo (2008), and the finale, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011).

John Cho made a small but memorable appearance in filmmaker Gregg Araki’s hilarious stoner comedy starring Anna Faris, Smiley Face (2008), but his next big move was in another universe: as Sulu in the rebooted director-producer J.J. Abrams Star Trek franchise, starting with Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), both directed by Abrams; Star Trek Beyond (2016), directed by Cho’s past collaborator, Justin Lin; and Untitled Star Trek: Beyond Sequel (date to be announced). Cho remained in sci-fi mode as a major supporting player in Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing’s widely derided remake of the brilliant 1990 Paul Verhoeven original, Total Recall (2012), starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, and Jessica Biel.

Cho then returned to comedy mode as the boss of co-star Jason Bateman in Universal Pictures’ $175.4 million-grossing hit, Identity Thief (2013), co-starring Melissa McCarthy, with Jon Favreau, Amanda Peet, Morris Chestnut, and Robert Patrick. Cho selected to do English-language voice dubs of such fine Japanese animated films as director/writer Isao Takahata’s historical fantasy, The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013), and director/writer Mamoru Hosoda’s adventure fantasy, Mirai (2018), as well as a major voice role in the Glen Keane-directed, Oscar-nominated musical fantasy, Over the Moon (2020), produced by Netflix Animation/Pearl Studio/Sony Pictures Imageworks and released theatrically and on streaming by Netflix.

John Cho co-starred with Patrick Wilson, Lena Headey, Ray Winstone, and Richard Dreyfuss in writer-director Mora Stephens’ political thriller, Zipper (2015), premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and released by Alchemy to negative reviews. Cho, on the other hand, starred in one of his most acclaimed movies and possibly his most memorable performance in debuting filmmaker Kogananda’s remarkable indie work premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, Columbus (2017), with Haley Lu Richardson, Parker Posey, Michelle Forbes, and Rory Culkin, earning a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score and a box return exceeding $1 million for distributor Sundance Institute.

Cho followed this artistic triumph with a cluster of supporting performances in a trio of movies by American indie auteurs, beginning with filmmaker Aaron Katz’s noir-ish Gemini (2017), co-starring Zoë Kravitz and Lola Kirke, premiering at the South by Southwest Film Festival and released by Neon; opposite star Justin Long in filmmaker Ryan Eggold’s comedy, Literally, Right Before Aaron (2017), with Cobie Smulders, Ryan Hansen, and Kristen Schaal, and premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival and released by Screen Media Films; and filmmaker and star Ike Barinholtz’s black comedy, The Oath (2018), co-starring Tiffany Haddish, Nora Dunn, and Billy Magnussen, and released to poor box office by Roadside Attractions.

Cho had his second major starring role in two years (and was nominated for Best Male Lead at the Independent Spirit Awards) with the surprise hit screen life thriller, Searching (2018), created by co-writer/director Aneesh Chaganty and co-writer/producer Sev Ohanian, and grossing an astounding $75 million (against $880,000 costs) for Screen Gems/Sony Pictures Releasing after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.

John Cho co-starred opposite Andrea Riseborough, Demian Bichir, Lin Shaye, and Jacki Weaver in the fourth installment in the Grudge horror series (and based on Takeshi Shimizu’s original Japanese Ju-On: The Grudge (2002)), The Grudge (2019), earning $49.5 million on $12 million costs for Screen Gems/Sony Pictures Releasing. Cho was a co-star and executive producer on Tigertail (2020), with Tzi Ma, Christine Ko, and Joan Chen under writer Alan Yang’s direction, though peculiarly Cho’s performance was cut (despite his producing credit) from the final theatrical and streaming release by Netflix.