Randall Park (born March 23, 1974) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is best known for his role as Louis Huang in the ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat (2015–2020), for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series award in 2016.
Before these major roles, Park gained popularity by playing Steve, a prank replacement of Jim Halpert (dubbed "Asian Jim") in an episode of the NBC sitcom The Office and starring in the recurring role of Governor Danny Chung in the HBO comedy series Veep. He also co-starred in and co-wrote the Netflix romantic comedy film Always Be My Maybe (2019), alongside Ali Wong.
He has appeared in numerous web series on Channel 101, including Dr. Miracles and IKEA Heights. He has also appeared in a few short films by Wong Fu Productions.
Park also appears in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Agent Jimmy Woo in the film Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), the miniseries WandaVision (2021), and the film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), as a future version of himself in the 2021 Dwayne Johnson autobiographical comedy series Young Rock, and in the DC Extended Universe film Aquaman (2018) as Dr. Stephen Shin.
Early life
Park was born to Korean immigrants in Los Angeles, California and grew up in Castle Heights, Los Angeles. His mother was an accountant at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and his father owned a one-hour photo store. Park graduated from Hamilton High School's humanities magnet program.
Park began attending UCLA in fall quarter of 1993. As a student, he co-founded "Lapu, the Coyote that Cares," the largest and longest-running on-campus Asian American theater company, now known as the LCC Theatre Company, in 1995. He credits his experiences with LCC for sparking his desire to pursue acting professionally and would go on to collaborate with many of its alumni. Their first performance was of Treehouse Bachelor Society, a full-length play Park had written, and it was performed at the Northwest Auditorium. Park was also a student volunteer for UCLA's official charity, UCLA UniCamp, and went by the camp name "CareMoose."
He graduated with a bachelor's degree in English, with a concentration in creative writing, and minor in Asian American studies from UCLA in 1997. He remained at UCLA, partly to continue acting with LCC, and later completed his master's degree in Asian American studies in 1999. After graduation, Park worked at the weekly newspaper New Times LA as a graphic/print designer for a few years. When he left the job, he considered pursuing architecture school but failed the pre-requisite courses and realized he did not want to attend any more schooling.