Harry Shum Jr.

Harry Shum Jr. (born April 28, 1982) is an American actor.

Shum spent most of his schooling years in San Luis Obispo County, California and graduated from Arroyo Grande High School in 2000.

Initially, he had been more interested in theater and sports but found a passion for dance after auditioning for his high school dance team on a dare.

Shum attended San Francisco State University for a year, before dropping out to pursue a dance career.

In an interview, he said that his earliest motivations to dance were from watching Ginuwine, Dru Hill, and Usher, before becoming influenced by dancers like Gene Kelly and Michael Jackson.

Shum began his dance career in Los Angeles.

As a 18-year-old, he was spotted by choreographers Rosero McCoy and Jamal Sims to go on a UK tour with the singer Kaci.

He steadily built his career, appearing as the only male dancer on BET's ComicView, and starred in a series of iPod advertisements as dancing silhouettes.

He joined Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, and Missy Elliott in their co-headlining tour Ladies First in 2004, while working as a backup dancer for artists including Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, and Mariah Carey.

He appeared in several music videos of songs including Lose My Breath by Destiny's Child and "It's Like That" by Mariah Carey.

Shum also worked as a dance instructor.

Shum has appeared in the films Step Up 2: The Streets (2008), Step Up 3D (2010), White Frog (2012), Revenge of the Green Dragons (2014), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016), Crazy Rich Asians (2018), the Hulu web series The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (2010–2011) and the YouTube Originals series Single by 30 (2016).

Since 2008, Shum was given roles in Step Up 2 and later Step Up 3D, both directed by Jon M. Chu.

Shum has played as Mike Chang on the Fox television series Glee (2009–2015), Benson Kwan on the ABC television series Grey's Anatomy (2022–present), and as Magnus Bane on the Freeform television series Shadowhunters (2016–2019).

He was nominated for six Screen Actors Guild Awards for best ensemble performance in Crazy Rich Asians, Glee and Everything Everywhere All At Once, winning for the latter two.

From 2009 until 2015, he portrayed the role of Mike Chang, a dancer who joins the glee club, on the Fox musical comedy-drama series Glee.

Known for a while as "Other Asian" on Glee, he was given very few lines during the show's first season.

Partly due to the enthusiasm from fans during his appearances on the live tour taking place after the first season concluded, Shum's character was given storylines in the second season, mostly involving his relationship with fellow glee club member Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz).

He subsequently gave performances of "Make 'Em Laugh" in "The Substitute", "Sing" from A Chorus Line in "Duets", "Valerie" in "Special Education", and the show's first dance solo in "A Night of Neglect".

He was promoted from guest star to series regular for the third season.

He was given a major storyline in the third episode of the season, "Asian F", and performed "Cool" from West Side Story, his first solo song.

In 2011, Shum starred in a short action film, 3 Minutes, directed by Ross Ching and produced by Don Le and George Wang.

In 2012 he starred in White Frog, a comedy-drama film directed by Quentin Lee.

Subsequently, Shum was cast in the role of the Kuai Liang (the younger Sub-Zero) in the second season of Mortal Kombat: Legacy.

Harry had a major role in crime drama film Revenge of the Green Dragons, which was executive produced by Martin Scorsese.

Shum was also a judge on the reality competition television series Face Off.

On June 28, 2013, it was reported that Shum would not return as regular on Glee fifth season, but would be a recurring guest star.

Shum worked as both a choreographer and a dancer for the dance group The LXD.

Shum has been featured in many productions of Wong Fu Productions.

In 2016, Shum appeared as the character Wei-Fang in the Netflix American–Chinese martial arts film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (1999).

Shum won the award for The Male TV Star of 2018 in the E! People's Choice Awards for Shadowhunters.

In 2020, he starred in Universal Pictures's romantic drama All My Life.

In 2021 Shum starred in the thriller Broadcast Signal Intrusion and appeared in Netflix's holiday rom-com Love Hard.

In 2022, Shum had a supporting role in A24's critically acclaimed film Everything Everywhere All at Once, and is set to star in a Crazy Rich Asians spinoff centered around his and Gemma Chan's characters.

Shum was born in Limón, Costa Rica, the son of Chinese immigrants.

His mother is a native of Hong Kong and his father is from Guangzhou, China.

They relocated to Costa Rica, where Shum and his two older sisters were born.

When Shum was six years old, the family moved to San Francisco, California.

He stated, "I feel I have the best of so many worlds. I speak Spanish and Cantonese. Spanish is actually my first language before I learned Cantonese and English."

He later stated that he has not spoken Spanish fluently since the age of 6.