Masi Oka
Masi Oka was born on December 27, 1974, in Tokyo, Japan, and holds Japanese citizenship. His languages include Japanese, English, Spanish, and French, pointing to a life engaged across more than one culture and country.
His education took him through several institutions. He attended The Mirman School and Harvard-Westlake School, then went on to study at Brown University. He also trained at iO Theater. Through those years of schooling, he developed into someone working across several disciplines: he is an actor in both film and television, a screenwriter, and a digital artist.
Oka works in all four of those roles — film actor, television actor, screenwriter, and digital artist — and holds citizenship in Japan. His multilingual range, covering Japanese, English, Spanish, and French, is one of the more concrete details the record shows about the breadth of his professional and personal life.
Quotes by Masi Oka
Masi Oka's insights on:
I am very happy to help share the great treasure trove of Japanese content with the western world.
If you look at Japanese drama, I think there is definitely a treasure trove of it, but I just don't think that people know about it. It's got to be pitched and presented better.
When you're making an adaptation, you have to make content for the fans; otherwise, you'll get something that won't even be accepted by the mainstream. You want to make something that the fans will approve and the mainstream will enjoy.
Virtual environments are anonymous, and I'm concerned that people - mainly younger folks who grow up this way - will see social relationships as part of a game.
One of the reasons I took up acting was to learn to be more human, to get in touch with human emotions.
In 'Star Wars: Episode II,' when Jango Fett is chasing Obi Wan Kenobi through an asteroid field, they needed a big asteroid to shatter into a million pieces, and I had to figure out how to do the fracturing, write the code, and show an artist how to use it.
I was raised by a single mother, and she felt the Japanese education system, albeit wonderful, keeps you in a certain range. You have to be better than this level but below this level.
I wasn't the best UI programmer, but I know to use the interface and that stuff. It's definitely given me a leg up in terms of being able to talk to the people in the games industry.
I just love comedy, and I honestly believe that laughter transcends everything. If everyone laughed together, laughed more, it would unite the world in peace.