Jason Scott Lee

Jason Scott Lee (Chinese: 李截; pinyin: Lǐ Jié; born November 19, 1966) is an American actor and martial artist who is perhaps best known for his roles as Bruce Lee (no relation) in the 1993 martial arts film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and Mowgli in Disney's 1994 live action adaptation of The Jungle Book.

Jason Scott Lee
Jason Scott Lee in 2003
Born	November 19, 1966 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, martial artist
Years active	1986–present
Spouse(s)	Diana Chan ​ (m. 2008)​

Personal life

Lee was born in Los Angeles.[1] He was raised in Hawaii and is of Hawaiian and Chinese descent.[2] He attended school at Pearl City High School.[3]

Lee has been married to Diana Chan since 2008.

Career

Lee started his acting career with small roles in Born in East L.A. (1987) and Back to the Future Part II (1989). He played his first leading role portraying Bruce Lee in the biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story in 1993.[4] Lee has trained in Bruce Lee's martial art Jeet Kune Do since portraying Lee and continues to train and became a certified instructor under former Bruce Lee student Jerry Poteet. He played leading roles in other films such as Map of the Human Heart (1993) and Rapa-Nui (1994). He starred as Mowgli in the 1994 live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book with Lena Headey and John Cleese. Lee was originally considered for the role of Liu Kang in the 1995 film Mortal Kombat, but Lee turned down the role and was replaced by Robin Shou. Lee played Caine 607 in the 1998 film Soldier, along with Kurt Russell and Mortal Kombat film director Paul Anderson. In 2000 he played Aladdin in the miniseries Arabian Nights. He did voice-over work for the 2002 Disney animated adventure film Lilo & Stitch.

Lee went on to appear in several direct-to-video films such as Dracula II: Ascension (2001), Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision (2003), and The Prophecy: Forsaken (2005). Lee is among the actors, producers and directors interviewed in the documentary The Slanted Screen (2006), directed by Jeff Adachi, about the representation of Asian and Asian American men in Hollywood.

Lee played Eddie in the 2007 sports comedy film Balls of Fury, in his first theatrical release film since 2002. Lee performed as The King of Siam in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I in a production at the London Palladium in 2000 opposite Elaine Paige.[5] Lee made his operatic debut in the non-singing role of Pasha Selim in Hawaii Opera Theatre's production of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio at the Blaisdell Concert Hall in Honolulu in February 2009.[6]

Lee was also to perform as The King of Siam in the 2014 Opera Australia production of The King and I in Melbourne opposite Lisa McCune, but was injured, and Lou Diamond Phillips had to take his role.

In 2016, Lee played Hades Dai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny. In 2019, he voiced the main character, The Swordsman, for Kevin McTurk's crowdsourced short puppetry film, The Haunted Swordsman..

In 2020, he played Böri Khan in the live action Mulan.

Filmography

Film

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1987	Born in East L.A.	Paco
1989	Back to the Future Part II	Whitey
1991	Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go to College	Kyle
1993	Map of the Human Heart	Avik
	Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story	Bruce Lee
1994	Rapa-Nui	Noro
	Picture Bride	Worker	Uncredited
	The Jungle Book	Mowgli
1997	Murder in Mind	Holloway
1998	Tale of the Mummy	Riley
	Soldier	Caine 607
2002	Lilo & Stitch	David Kawena (voice)
2003	Dracula II: Ascension	Father Uffizi	Direct-to-video
	Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision	Ryan Chan
2005	Dracula III: Legacy	Father Uffizi
	Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch	David Kawena (voice)
	The Prophecy: Forsaken	Dylan
	Only the Brave	Glenn Takase
	Nomad	Oraz
2007	Balls of Fury	Eddie
2008	Dance of the Dragon	Cheng
2014	Seventh Son	Urag
2016	Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny	Hades Dai
	Burn Your Maps	Shaman's assistant
	Alaska Is a Drag	Diego
2019	The Haunted Swordsman (short)	The Swordsman (voice)
2020	Mulan	Böri Khan
2021	The Wind and the Reckoning	Ko'olau

Television

Year	TV series	Role	Notes
1988	Matlock	Lee Tran	2, episode 2: "The Fisherman"
1989	Wolf	Chin	Season 1, episode 6: "Curtains of Silence"
1990	CBS Schoolbreak Special	John Henderson	Season 7, episode 4: "American Eyes"
	The Lookalike	John "Charlie" Chan	Television movie
	Vestige of Honor	Ha-Kuhn	Television movie
1997	The Hunger	Craig Yun	Season 1, episode 4: "The Secret Shih Tan"
2000	Arabian Nights	Aladdin	Miniseries
2010–2013	Hawaii Five-0	Detective Kaleo	3 episodes
2021	Doogie Kameāloha, M.D.	Benny Kameāloha	Upcoming series

Documentary

Year	Documentary	Role	Notes
2006	The Slanted Screen	Himself	Documentary
2012	Secrets of Shaolin	Himself	TV documentary
2014	Trekking Malaysia with Jason Scott Lee	Himself	Travel documentary

Honors and recognition

In recognition of Lee's positive impact on the image of Asians in America through his physical, attractive roles, Goldsea, the Asian American magazine website, placed him at Number 7 on its compilation "The 130 Most Inspiring Asian Americans of All Time".[7]

References

1. "Jason Scott Lee Biography (1966-)". filmreference.com. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
2. Todd Gilchrist. "Jason Scott Lee Interview". IGN.
3. The Shadow of the Dragon: It wasn't easy finding an actor to play martial arts god Bruce Lee, but Jason Scott Lee found the key to the man behind the flying fists by Lawrence Christon, Los Angeles Times, May 2, 1993
4. Rainer, Peter (May 7, 1993). "'Dragon,' Jason Scott Lee: They Have the Chops : The biopic depicts a larger-than-life Bruce Lee. The actor playing him meets the challenge and proves himself a star in the making". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 4, 2010.
5. Loveridge, Lizzie. "A CurtainUp London Review, The King and I", Curtainup.com, May 3, 2000. Retrieved March 22, 2014
6. http://www.hawaiiopera.org/news_and_events/112108_jason_scoot_lee Archived May 12, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
7. "The 130 Most Inspiring Asian Americans of All Time".

External links

• Jason Scott Lee on Twitter
• Jason Scott Lee at IMDb