Description:
Matthew Yang King (born May 6, 1974) is an American actor, voice actor, writer, producer, and director known for his work in television, film, animation, and video games. He has appeared in shows such as Riverdale, 24, Strong Medicine, and Numbers, and has provided voice work for many animated projects and games. King also created the steampunk-inspired web series The World of Steam and has voiced characters in Mortal Kombat, Love, Death & Robots, and other major franchises. He appears in the Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender as Appa and Momo, in Pixar's Elemental and the Netflix series Not Quite Narwhal, as well as
Matthew Yang King (born May 6, 1974) is an American actor, voice actor, writer, producer, and director known for his work in television, film, animation, and video games. He has appeared in shows such as Riverdale, 24, Strong Medicine, and Numbers, and has provided voice work for many animated projects and games. King also created the steampunk-inspired web series The World of Steam and has voiced characters in Mortal Kombat, Love, Death & Robots, and other major franchises. He appears in the Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender as Appa and Momo, in Pixar's Elemental and the Netflix series Not Quite Narwhal, as well as Riverdale, Powers, 24, Strong Medicine, and Numbers. He created the short films The World of Steam, The Duelist and has provided voiceover work for numerous television shows, video games, and commercials including Love, Death & Robots, Studio Ghibli's 25th Anniversary English dub of Only Yesterday with Daisy Ridley, the World of Warcraft franchise, Cyberpunk 2077, G.I. Joe: Renegades, Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Fortnite, Supah Ninjas, and Marvel Heroes.
Matthew Yang King was born on May 6, 1974, in New York City, New York, USA. He began playing the violin at age five and started studying Aikido at age eight, interests that influenced his lifelong passions in music and martial arts. King later attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts to pursue his training in performance and the arts.
Matthew Yang King began his professional career in 1998 after leaving New York to tour the United States with the Broadway touring production of Titanic: The Musical. Since then, he has worked steadily across voice acting, film, television, stage, writing, and creative production.
Voice acting
King has provided numerous voices for television, film, and video games, from the voice of the Host in "The Witness" and Liang and Renshu in "Good Hunting". His work includes Father and Kozou in Studio Ghibli's Only Yesterday, Illidan Stormrage in the World of Warcraft franchise, The Persuader in Bruce Timm's Justice League vs The Fatal Five, The Atom in Injustice 2, Eian in Batman Ninja, and the voices of Splinter and Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT). King is the voice of Apple in numerous television ads and also voiced both Liu Kang and Fujin in Mortal Kombat 11 and also voiced Kung Lao in the animated film Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms.[3]
Additionally, King was one of the creators and hosts of the long-running podcast, GeeksOn,[4] with Aaron Hendricks, Donald Marshall, and Peter Gamble Robinson.
Film and television
King has had recurring roles on Riverdale, Numbers, 24, and Strong Medicine. He starred opposite Danny Huston in the Bernard Rose film The Kreutzer Sonata, which also features King playing the violin.
Stage
King's stage credits include the first Broadway touring production of Titanic: The Musical,[2] East West Players' Yankee Dawg You Die[5] as Bradley with Sab Shimono and The Tempest[6] as Caliban[7] with fellow NYU Tisch alumnus Daniel Dae Kim, and an NAACP award-winning hip-hop version of The Two Gentlemen of Verona called 2G's at Los Angeles' Sacred Fools Theater.[8]
Writing
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Frustrated with playing stereotypically Asian roles in the early-mid 2000s, King began writing to create roles for minority actors "that people felt they could wrap their brains around that were about being ethnic...[and] racism."[9] The Harrowing, his script with Peter Gamble featuring an African-American man as the lead in a horror film is in development.[citation needed]
Crowdfunding projects
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In 2017, King collaborated with cartoonist Ellipsis Stephens and fellow producers Phil LaMarr and Danielle Stephens to bring Stephen's webcomic, Goblins, to life as an animated series. The Goblins Animated campaign on Indiegogo was to produce a five-minute long mega-trailer/pilot that could be used to garner more interest in the project.[10] King himself voices one of the characters, Fumbles. Notable voice actors make up the rest of the cast, including Phil LaMarr as Complains of Names, Billy West as Minmax, Maurice LaMarche as Forgath, Jim Cummings as Thaco, Tara Strong as Saves a Fox, Matthew Mercer as Big Ears, Jennifer Hale as Kin, and Steve Blum as Kore. The mega-trailer is currently under production.
In 2012, King created a Kickstarter project for his steampunk webseries called The World of Steam.[11] Written, directed, and produced by King, the show is set in a Twilight Zone-type steampunk universe and featured Scott Folsom, Gail Folsom, Gina Torres, Mido Hamada, Karl E. Landler, Julian Curtis, Robin Atkin Downes, and King himself as the host, Mr. Liang.[citation needed] At the time, the series was the highest-grossing webseries ever on Kickstarter.[12] The first episode, The Clockwork Heart, was released as a webisode in 2013 and contains music by composer Bear McCreary. The remainder of the series is still in the works and is being developed for television.[9][13]
Steampunk work
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After the creation of the World of Steam webseries in 2012, King was seen as a leader in the Steampunk creative community.[14][15] As a result, he was invited to serve as one of the three judges on the first-ever network Steampunk-themed reality show, Game Show Network's Steampunk'd in 2015. King cites his Steampunk influces as H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, H.P. Lovecraft, K.W. Jeter,[12] Robert Howard, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and China Mieville,[16] among others. He collaborated with Scott and Gail Folsom from the League of STEAM on the pilot episode for the World of Steam, "The Clockwork Heart,"[11] and was cited in the 2016 book, Like Clockwork: Steampunk Pasts, Presents, and Futures, edited by Rachel A. Bowser and Brian Croxall.[17] His Love, Death and Robots episode, "Good Hunting," is Asian-inspired Steampunk.[18] King has appeared at various Steampunk conventions as a presenter and judge, and is currently collaborating with Cheyenne Wright of Girl Genius on a new Steampunk project called The Cabinet of Curiosities.
Matthew Yang King is credited with voice roles in the video game Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days (2010), where he contributed additional character voices, including minor characters such as gang members and supporting antagonists.
In this game, he is noted for voicing roles like Li “Brady” Lung and a Hsing’s Goon, portraying members of the criminal underworld that the main characters encounter. These roles place him in the same narrative space as the main cast, which includes actors such as Brian Bloom, Jarion Monroe, Ben Lin, Lydia Look, and Jason Connery.
His work in Kane & Lynch 2 reflects his broader career as a versatile voice actor, where he often portrays multiple supporting or background characters in action and crime-themed stories.
Personal Life
Matthew Yang King is married and has three children. He keeps his family life relatively private, but public biographical records list that he has three kids.
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