Lawrence Kao is an American actor, best known for his roles as Tommy Wah in theNetflix seriesWu Assassins, Donnie Lu in theFox seriesSleepy Hollow, Van in theCW seriesThe Originals and Tim in theAMC series,The Walking Dead.

Kao was born and raised inHacienda Heights, California, where he later graduated fromGlen A. Wilson High School.^[1] He played Lysander in his high school's production ofA Midsummer Night's Dream. However, during one of the in-class previews of the show, Kao was falsely arrested for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. If convicted, the minimum sentencing would have been 40 years behind bars. Kao was later released in the absence and lack of probable cause, giving him enough time to make it before the closing night of the show. After being forced to contemplate his life inside jail, Kao realized he wanted to pursue acting as a profession.^[2]

Kao received his B.A. in theater from theUniversity of California, Irvine (UCI), where he was a part ofKaba Modern dance team. Within the dancing community on campus, he befriended the Kinjaz dance team cofounders Mike Song and Anthony Lee.^[2]

He pursued a full-time career as an actor.^[3] Starting out, he found that including his dancing credentials on his resume would always elicit a dance request at auditions, so he removed it after several incidents.^[2]

In 2012, Kao made his television acting debut in theAMCpost-apocalyptichorror seriesThe Walking Dead. Following on from his first role, Kao won other roles on a variety of TV shows and films includingHawaii Five-0,Sleepy Hollow,Girlboss,Lucky Fifty,Silver Lake,NCIS: Los Angeles andThe Purge.

On October 17, 2018, it was announced that Kao had been cast in the series regular role of Tommy Wah on theNetflix crime drama seriesWu Assassins.^[4][5] Kao reprised his role in the sequel filmFistful of Vengeance.^[6] It was released on February 17, 2022.^[7]

After graduating from UCI, Kao continued working as a dancer, and later competed in thefirst season ofMTV'sAmerica's Best Dance Crew with his college dance team, Kaba Modern.^[3]

As of June 2019, Kao is dancing with the Kinjaz dance team.^[3]

• Lawrence Kao atIMDb
• Interview for Google Talks

• Living people
• Dancers from California
• Male actors from Los Angeles County, California
• People from Hacienda Heights, California
• American breakdancers
• American hip-hop dancers
• American male television actors
• American male film actors
• 21st-century American male actors
• American male actors of Chinese descent

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from July 2019
• Articles with hCards
• Pages using infobox person with deprecated parameters
• Year of birth missing (living people)