Daniel Wu Bio, Age, Height, Wife, Daughter, Warcraft, In To The Band Lands, Movies

Daniel Wu Biography

Daniel Wu Yan-Zu is an American-born Hong Kong actor, director and producer who stars in the AMC martial arts drama series Into the Badlands. Since his film debut in 1998, Wu has been featured in over 60 films. In the Chinese language film industry, Wu is known as a “flexible and distinctive” leading actor.

Daniel Wu Age

Daniel Wu was born on September 30, 1974 in Berkeley, California, United States. As of 2018 Wu is 44 years old.

Daniel Wu Height

Daniel Wu stands at a height of 1.82 m.

Daniel Wu Wife

Daniel Wu married Lisa S. on April 6, 2010 in South Africa.

Daniel Wu Daughter

Daniel Wu and Lisa S. have a daughter called Raven, born in June 2013.

Daniel Wu Parents

Daniel Wu’s parents, Diana, a college professor and George Wu, a retired engineer are natives of Shanghai, China. His father immigrated to the United States in 1949 after the communist revolution in China and met his mother in New York, where she was a student. After marrying, they settled in California.

Daniel Wu Sisters | Brother

Daniel Wu has two older sisters, Greta and Gloria and an older brother who died when he was two.

Daniel Wu Education

Daniel Wu attended the Head-Royce School in Oakland, California and later majored in architecture at the University of Oregon. While there, in 1994 Wu founded the University of Oregon Wushu Club and served as the team’s first coach. During this time, he also took film classes and frequented local theaters and came to enjoy the works of filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and Luc Besson, whom Wu describes as “men of vision.” Following graduation, in 1997 Wu traveled to Hong Kong to witness the handover of Hong Kong, with no intention of taking on a movie career. At the suggestion of his sister, he began modeling. Film director Yonfan, approached Wu four months later about starring in an upcoming movie after seeing him featured in a clothing ad at a railway station.

Into The Band Lands | Warcraft

Daniel Wu began starring as Sunny on the AMC action series Into the Badlands in November 2015, for which he also serves as executive producer. Wu portrayed via motion capture and voiced Gul’dan in 2016, the central antagonist of the action fantasy film Warcraft, based upon the popular video game series by Blizzard.

Daniel Wu Career

Wu successfully completed his first movie, Yonfan’s Bishonen in 1998 despite his inability at the time to speak Hong Kong Cantonese or read Chinese. Still today, when Wu receives a Cantonese script, his assistant reads the entire piece, while he is making notes on the pronunciation. Wu was offered the leading role the day after Bishonen wrapped, in Mabel Cheung’s City of Glass (for which Wu was nominated as best new actor at the 18th Hong Kong Film Awards) and later, a supporting part in Young and Dangerous: The Prequel, from Andrew Lau’s gangster film series. Around this time, he met superstar Jackie Chan at a restaurant opening and was quickly signed to Chan’s JC Group with agent Willie Chan. In 1999, is when Wu’s breakthrough performance came with his role in Benny Chan’s Gen-X Cops. Wu followed this success with roles in a variety of movies including big-budget thriller Purple Storm, art-house production Peony Pavilion and the extremely successful Love Undercover. Wu received criticism in 2001, from the Hong Kong media for sexual scenes with Suki Kwan in Cop on a Mission, but Wu says that same criticism attracted the attention of directors and the film represented a turning point in the types of roles he chose in the future.

His first experience in film production came with his starring role in Julian Lee’s 2003 film, Night Corridor. Wu also participated in the search for funding due to budgetary constraints, for and distribution of, the film and recruited Jun Kung to create the soundtrack. Though the film, Night Corridor dealt with “risky” themes, Wu felt he had less reliance on image than many of his pop-star actor peers and he was nominated for best actor at Taiwan’s 40th Golden Horse Film Awards for his effort. Wu also took part as producer and creative director during 2003 on “MTV’s Whatever Things!”, a “Jackass”-styled program aired in Asia, also featuring Sam Lee,Terence Yin, Josie Ho and other celebrities. In 2003 also Wu took part in a stage production of The Happy Prince at the Edward Lam Dance Theater as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, during which he recited a 16-minute monologue in Cantonese, learned entirely from pinyin. Wu was nominated as best actor at the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2005, for his role in Derek Yee’s One Nite in Mongkok and as best supporting actor for New Police Story. Wu won the award for best supporting actor for New Police Story at the 41st Golden Horse Film Awards. Wu’s win came as a surprise, because he “didn’t think that much” of his performance in the film.

In 2005, Chinese media began to report that Wu had formed a boy band, Alive, with Terence Andrew Lin and Yin Conroy Chan. Wu and his bandmates posted updates, information, personal thoughts (including slamming Hong Kong Disneyland, for which they were spokespersons and the band’s music, at their official website. Wu made his writing and directorial debut in 2006, with The Heavenly Kings, which chronicles Alive’s formation and exploits. After the film’s release, however, it was revealed that The Heavenly Kings was actually a mockumentary of the Hong Kong pop music industry and Alive was constructed purely as a vehicle to make the movie; the film’s characters represented only 10 to 15% of their real-life counterparts and much of the footage blurred the line between fiction and reality. Wu admitted his own singing voice “sucked really bad” and the band had their voices digitally enhanced for its music, to prove that it was easy to fake that. Wu won the best new director award at the 26th Hong Kong Film Awards, an achievement he called “a group effort” despite some backlash from the media over being intentionally fed false information in the movie about illegal downloads of the band’s music.

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A post shared by Daniel Wu 吴 彦 祖 (@thatdanielwu) on Oct 2, 2018 at 11:01am PDT