Garrett Richard Wang (; ; born December 15, 1968) is an American actor best known for his role of Ensign Harry Kim in Star Trek: Voyager.

Early life and education

Wang was born in Riverside, California, to Taiwanese American immigrant parents. He has one sister. Growing up, Wang moved often. He attended kindergarten in Indiana before moving to Bermuda, and then back to California.

Wang's parents did not support his acting ambitions. His father emigrated from Taiwan to attend graduate school in the States and did not view acting as a stable career choice.

Career

When Wang decided to become a full-time actor, he made a deal with his parents that, if he was not successful within two years, he would quit, on the condition that they helped finance his expenses.

Wang starred in Eric Koyanagi's MFA thesis film at USC film school, Angry Cafe (1995). He subsequently came back to star in Koyanagi's feature directorial debut, hundred percent (1998), which also was Wang's feature debut.

Theatre

In 1993, while a student at UCLA, Wang portrayed John Lee, a gay British Chinese teenager who kills his Irish lover, in Chay Yew's play, Porcelain, at the now defunct Burbage Theater in Sawtelle, Los Angeles.

He watched all the Star Trek films that came out in the theaters, but didn't follow Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) prior to working on Voyager. The first season-one TNG episode he saw was "Code of Honor", which he said all Trek writers considered "the worst episode ever produced". On three occasions, within a year and a half, he tried to watch TNG again, and it was always a repeat of "Code of Honor".

On a convention panel in 2015, Wang said of this: "I realized God was telling me ‘Don’t become a fan of TNG!’ Because I would have been too nervous to audition for Voyager. So really, God helped me get on Voyager."

At Star Trek Las Vegas in 2014, Wang was announced to be reprising his role as Harry Kim in "Delta Rising", the second expansion of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Star Trek Online.

Conventions

Wang has been a celebrity moderator interviewing other celebrities at various conventions around the world since 2008.

In 2010, he was named the director of the Trek Track for Dragon Con, becoming the first actor to work behind the scenes at a convention.

Wang has participated in the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, in 2012 interviewing Stan Lee and being present at a booth among other exhibitors, and as a surprise speaker at TNG Exposed.

Personal life

Through November 2017, Wang hosted a weekly podcast on Twitch. He discussed his post-Star Trek work as a convention moderator, and other anecdotes of his life.

He currently co-hosts The Delta Flyers Podcast with Robert Duncan McNeill, who portrayed Tom Paris in Voyager.

He is a Baptist.

|}

Video games

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|-

! Year

! Title

! Role

! Notes

|-

| 2002

| Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force

| rowspan="2" | Harry Kim

| rowspan="2" | Voice role

|-

| 2014

| Star Trek Online

|-

|2023

|Truth

|Host

|

|}

References

  • Interview about his career and views on Star Trek (GeeksOn): Interview proper starts at 27min50sec