Anthony Brandon Wong

Anthony Brandon Wong is an award-winning actor who has played a wide range of roles in numerous films and more than 40 hit television programs in the US, Canada, Asia, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Africa. He has also played lead and major roles in over thirty stage productions, mostly in Australia. He is best known to international audiences for his role as ‘Ghost’, the Zen Buddhist assassin in “The Matrix Reloaded”, “The Matrix Revolutions”, and as the lead character (alongside Jada Pinkett Smith) in the “Enter the Matrix” video game, all written and directed by The Wachowski’s. Wong spent 15 months working in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sydney, Australia, opposite Pinkett Smith, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Monica Bellucci, Harold Perrineau and Hugo Weaving.

For 3 seasons, Wong played the principal role of Danny Law, father of five children, in the SBS/Matchbox Pictures comedy series “The Family Law”, which made history for being the first acting ensemble to win an Equity Ensemble Award three times, when it won Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble Cast in a Comedy Series in 2017, 2018 and 2020. The Family Law also won the 2016 Screen Producers Australia Awards (SPAA) for Best Comedy Series Production and the 2016 Casting Guild of Australia (CGA) Award for Best Casting in a TV Comedy Series. “The Family Law” was also nominated for a 2016 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Award for Best Television Comedy Series.

In 2019, Wong played the supporting role of drag queen Virginia Woof in the Australian movie “Sequin in a Blue Room”, which made its world premiere at Sydney Film Festival and won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature. It was also screened at Outfest in Los Angeles in July 2019. Wong played Patrick McDermott, the real-life Korean-American cameraman who disappeared in 2005, in the mini-series “Olivia: Hopelessly Devoted to You” opposite his acting student, Australian singer/actress Delta Goodrem, who portrayed Olivia Newton-John.

Also in 2019, Wong made a cameo appearance in the ABC (Australia)/Netflix comedy series “The Letdown” (Season 2), and completed filming on two forthcoming Australian features – “The Pitch”, playing the supporting role of Bobby Berman, a tough-talking New York movie executive, and “Unsound”, opposite Game of Throne’s Reece Noi. He was also seen in an episode of the US/French TV series “Reef Break”.

In 2018, Wong played the supporting role of dance teacher Tin in the Australian feature “Thicker than Water” alongside 15 of his acting students including Australian singer-songwriter Pete Murray. Anthony was nominated for an “Honorable Mention Award for Supporting Actor” for his performance at the 2018 Los Angeles Film Awards. Wong’s dance track “Emancipate” is also part of the soundtrack of the movie.

Wong starred in the sci-fi short “Emporium”, playing the lead role opposite nine of his acting students including Christopher Sommers (“The Water Diviner”). Wong was nominated for Best Actor in a Short Film at the 2017 Edmonton Festival of Fear International Film Festival.

In 2017, Wong was seen in the ABC medical drama series “Pulse” as neurosurgeon Dr Arthur Chan, appearing alongside Game of Throne’s Owen Teale, Hawaii Five-0’s Claire van der Boom, and Seven Types of Ambiguity’s Susie Porter. He was also seen in the Channel Seven (Australia) mini-series “Blue Murder: Killer Cop” which stars Richard Roxburgh, Toni Collette and Aaron Pedersen, and as high school principal John Nguyen in the multi-award winning ABC (Australia) television program “First Day”. Wong reprised his role in the 2019 series of “First Day”.

Earlier in 2017, Wong played a lead guest role of a father struggling with his transgender child in the ABC legal drama series “Newton’s Law” opposite Claudia Karvan and Toby Schmitz.

Wong played the series regular role of lascivious shop-owner and fish-fighting champion Le Bok in the NBC Universal/Matchbox Pictures kung fu comedy series “Maximum Choppage”, which was screened on Australia’s ABC TV network in early 2015. The main cast of “Maximum Choppage” were nominated for a 2016 Equity Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.

In 2013-4, Wong filmed the role of Michael Lau in the Matchbox Pictures sci-fi series “Nowhere Boys”, which won multiple awards including an International Emmy Award in 2016, Best Children’s Series at the 2014 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards, and a 2014 Logie Award for Most Outstanding Children’s Program.

In 2012, Wong played the role of former Chinese premier Chou En-lai in the HBO movie “Hemingway and Gellhorn” opposite Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen, directed by Philip Kaufman. That same year, he played the supporting role of ‘Asian Elvis’ opposite Gary Oldman and Christian Slater in the comedy “Guns, Girls and Gambling”, which was shot in Salt Lake City, Utah, and also played a guest role opposite Ed Asner in “Hawaii Five-O” in the episode titled “Kalele”, filmed in Honolulu.

In 2011, Wong was seen in the Steven Soderbergh movie “Haywire”, alongside Michael Douglas, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, and Gina Carano. Wong filmed the role of kidnapped journalist ‘Jiang’ in Dublin, Barcelona and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Other notable film credits include the 20th Century Fox action movie “Flight of the Phoenix”, opposite Dennis Quaid, Giovanni Ribisi, Hugh Laurie, Tyrese Gibson, and Tony Curran, which was filmed in the deserts of Namibia, the lead male role in Clara Law’s “Floating Life” as a womanizing Hong Kong stockbroker who realizes the error of his philandering ways, the villainous Chinatown crime lord Peter Cho in the Australian comedy “Crooked Business” and the films “Little Fish” (opposite Cate Blanchett), “Lilian’s Story” (starring Toni Collette), “Till There Was You” (starring Mark Harmon and Jeroen Krabbe), and “Seeing Red” (opposite David Wenham, ‘Faramir’ in “The Lord of the Rings”).

In 2008, Wong played the series regular role of ‘Tasuke Kogo’ in ABC Family’s “Samurai Girl”, father of the title character and one of Japan’s most powerful businessmen. In the same year, in the BBC’s “Secrets of the Forbidden City” he played the principal character of real life 15th Century Chinese Emperor Yongle, the visionary but despotic leader who built the world-famous Forbidden City.

Wong also played the lead role of Hirohito opposite Caspar Van Dien (“Starship Troopers”) in the US martial arts TV movie “Mask of the Ninja” (Spike TV). His many other television credits include “Glee” (in the Series 2 episode “Grilled Cheesus”), “The Unit” (as a Thai prince facing death threats), “NCIS” (as Navy Doctor Russell Nguyen), the Francis Ford Coppola produced “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” (playing a Hong Kong detective), Disney Channel’s “Jumping Ship” (as a modern-day pirate), “All Saints” (as a journalist who loses his partner), “Water Rats” (as a compulsive gambler), “Xena Warrior Princess” “Cassidy”, “The Boys from the Bush”, “Home and Away”, “A Country Practice”, “The Alice” and the HBO pilot “1%”, written by Michael Tolkin (“The Player”) and directed by Emmy award winning director Alan Taylor (“The Sopranos”).

Wong also played the series regular roles of ‘Mek’, a heroic scientist on “Spellbinder 2”, filmed in Poland, China and Australia, opposite Ryan Kwanten (“True Blood”) and ‘Lee’, a political revolutionary in “Embassy”, filmed in Melbourne and Fiji.

He played the role of Gerald in the Internet series “The Booth at the End”, opposite Xander Berkeley (“24” and “Nikita”), produced by Michael Eisner.

In 1992, he won the Victorian Green Room Best Actor Award (theatre) for his performance as a Filipino transvestite in “Sex Diary of an Infidel”, which also netted him a Sydney Critics Circle Award nomination. He also scored Green Room Award nominations for his stage work in “The Temple” as a cocaine-addicted paraplegic and in “The Language of the Gods” as an Indonesian priest with magical powers. He played the lead role of a Malaysian king in the Melbourne Theatre Company production of “Coup d’etat”, and portrayed an Aboriginal hip-hop artist, a Lebanese tough guy, an African schoolgirl and a New Zealand-born Samoan boxer in the acclaimed stage production of “Fast Cars and Tractor Engines” (Urban Theatre Projects, Sydney). In 2010, he starred in the circus theatre spectacular “Shanghai Lady Killer”, written by renown Australian director and screenwriter Tony Ayres (“The Home Song Stories”) and in the villainous role of Vasquez in “‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore” at Melbourne’s acclaimed Malthouse Theatre. In early 2017, Wong was seen in the Australian stage premiere of the Olivier-Award winning play “Chimerica” at Sydney Theatre Company, directed by Kip Williams. Wong played old alcoholic doctor Chebutykin in the Sydney Theatre Company production of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” in November/December 2017 at Sydney Opera House, and the role of Mississippi-accented Doctor Baugh in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ opposite Hugo Weaving and Pamela Rabe (“Wentworth”). Both productions were also directed by Kip Williams.

Wong is an accomplished singer in cabaret, having performed in shows at Hollywood’s renown cabaret venues M Bar and Gardenia Lounge, and sung in the Australian musicals “Rasputin” directed by Emmy award winning director Stephen Hopkins), and “And It’s Got a Lovely Backyard”. In Sydney, Australia, he has sung at well-known music venues such as The Imperial Hotel, The Harbourside Brasserie, Side On Cafe, LA Bar, and at the Chinese Gardens in Darling Harbour. He has recorded a dance single “Emancipate”, co-written with Daniel Nemes, and produced by Steve Peach, who has worked with the likes of Gwen Stefani, Macy Gray and Kylie Minogue.

He is also a writer (journalism, plays) and comedian (credits include the hit Australian comedy stage show “Wog-a-rama”, the sit-com “Acropolis Now” and stand up).

He is also a much sought after acting teacher and coach, who has taught at Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Arts (alumni include Cate Blanchett, Mel Gibson and Judy Davis), Actors Centre Australia (where Hugh Jackman and Naomi Watts studied), West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, 16th Street Studios Melbourne, Queensland University of Technology and the Australian Theatre for Young People.

Wong has trained in many different acting techniques (Meisner, Strasberg, Improvisation, Asian theatre methods) and with many acclaimed acting teachers including world-renown acting coach Ivana Chubbuck, who has worked with Halle Berry, Brad Pitt, Jake Gyllenhaal, Charlize Theron, Jim Carrey, Terrence Howard, Catherine Keener, Kate Hudson and hundreds of other A List actors. Ivana Chubbuck trained Wong to be an accredited teacher of her acting technique. He has also studied with Larry Moss, acting coach to Leonardo di Caprio, Hilary Swank, Helen Hunt and Tobey Maguire; with Eric Morris, former coach to Jack Nicholson, and with Elizabeth Kemp, who worked with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga on their performances in “A Star is Born”. Wong studied voice with Patsy Rodenburg and the late Rowena Balos (with whom he ran annual acting, voice and US accent workshops in Sydney for many years). He has also studied with Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s Amy Morton and Audrey Francis, with UK directors Mike Alfreds and Ian Rickson, and with West Side Story’s Carole d’Andrea.