HIRO KANAGAWA
ACTOR, WRITER
ACTOR
Hiro Kanagawa is a well-known and well-regarded character actor with a diverse and extensive resume. Also an accomplished playwright and screenwriter, he is the recipient of the 2017 Governor General’s Literary for Drama for his play Indian Arm.
Hiro’s distinct talents were cultivated over a lifetime of wide-ranging experiences in a variety of locales. Born in Sapporo, Japan, he grew up in Guelph, Ontario and Sterling Heights, Michigan before returning to Japan for high school. Showing an early talent in a variety of arts, he went on to study at a series of prestigious East Coast schools: Middlebury College, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. He trained in classical guitar, sculpture, performance art, and theatre along the way, honing his skills as both a creator and performer.
Hiro moved to Vancouver in 1990, attracted by the burgeoning film and television production in the city. Since then he has become a mainstay of the industry with close to 170 credits in projects ranging from blockbuster features to indie films and hit series to cult favorites. Some notable roles:
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James Kwan, principal of Smallville High in Season I of the CW hit Smallville
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Cyrus Xander, right-hand man to Eric Stoltz’s Daniel Greystone in SyFy’s Caprica
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Voice of Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic in Marvel’s The Fantastic Four animated series
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Lt. Suzuki, the secret zombie cop in the current CW hit iZombie
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Hachiro Otomo, the mysterious game designer in NBC’s Heroes Reborn
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Taishi Okamura, yakuza nemesis to Joel de la Fuente’s Inspector Kido on Amazon’s Man in the High Castle
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Captain Tanaka, the conflicted and compromised head of the Bay City Police in the smash-hit Netflix series Altered Carbon
Other recent credits include guest starring spots on The CW’s DC Legends of Tomorrow and CBS's Salvation. As a writer, his environmental poem Gaia is currently being performed around the world as part of Climate Change Theatre Action 2017. Hiro makes his home in Port Moody, BC with his wife and two children.
VIEW AND DOWNLOAD SCREEN CV
VIEW AND DOWNLOAD STAGE CV
Although perhaps best known as an actor, Hiro is an award-winning playwright and sought-after story consultant. He was story editor on several critically-acclaimed Canadian television series: Da Vinci’s Inquest, Da Vinci’s City Hall, Intelligence, and Blackstone. His plays Tiger of Malaya and The Patron Saint of Stanley Park have been performed across Canada. His most recent play, Indian Arm received the 2015 Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Original Script and the 2017 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Drama.
VIEW AND DOWNLOAD WRITING CV
WRITER
DEMO REEL
Montage
Supernatural
Dark Matter
Her Story
GALLERY
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NEWS
6/28/2019
Tiger Vanier Has Left the Building
Toronto friends, if you have a car and a smartphone, don't miss my piece "Tiger Vanier Has Left the Building" which is a part of fu-GEN Theatre's innovative new project "Fearless." It's theatre for an audience of one in which the audience member is like an Uber driver! Here's a great preview of the project and my piece in the Toronto Star.
6/28/2019
All Systems Go with my stage adaptation of Mark Sakamoto's "Forgiveness"
For the past year I"ve been working on a stage adaptation of "Forgiveness," Mark Sakamoto's best-selling memoir. The script is a co-commission between Theatre Calgary and Vancouver's Arts Club Theatre and I'm happy to report that we're on schedule for a public reading at the Arts Club's Festival of New Plays in September. Stay tuned!
7/9/2018
Have a Sapporo!
So thrilled to be the voice of Sapporo in this N. American ad campaign. Guys, I'm from Sapporo! It's my favorite Japanese beer. They brew it in Canada in Guelph, the Canadian hometown of my childhood. Who better than me to be the voice of this "legendary biru"? Gonna give that "most interesting man in the world" guy a run for his money!
2/7/2018
The OcchiMag interview
I go in-depth with Occhi Magazine about all things sci-fi and Altered Carbon.
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CONTACT
REPRESENTATION
Carrier Talent Management
705 - 1080 Howe St.
Vancouver, BC V6Z 2T1
AGENT
Darren Boidman
Fax: 604.683.8642
TORONTO OFFICE
455 Avenue Rd., Suite 300
Toronto, ON M4V 2J2
PUBLICITY
M Public Relations
Morgan Moss
Mieka Tennant