Jason Scott Lee (Wikipedia)
Jason Scott Lee is an American actor and martial artist who is perhaps best known for his roles as Bruce Lee (no relation) in the 1993 martial arts film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and Mowgli in Disney’s 1994 live action adaptation of The Jungle Book.
Lee was born in Los Angeles. He was raised in Hawaii and is of both Hawaiian and Chinesedescent. He attended school at Pearl City High School. He has been married to Diana Lee since 2008.
Lee started his acting career with small roles in Born in East L.A. (1987) and Back to the Future Part II (1989). He played his first leading role portraying Bruce Lee in the biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story in 1993. Lee has trained in Bruce Lee’s martial art Jeet Kune Do since portraying Lee and continues to train and is now a certified instructor under former Bruce Lee student Jerry Poteet. He played leading roles in other films such as Map of the Human Heart(1993) and Rapa-Nui (1994). He starred as Mowgli in the 1994 live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling‘s The Jungle Book with Lena Headey and John Cleese. Lee was originally considered for the role of Liu Kang in the 1995 film Mortal Kombat, but Lee turned down the role and was replaced by Robin Shou. Lee played Caine 607 in the 1998 film Soldier, along with Kurt Russell and Mortal Kombat film director Paul Anderson. In 2000 he played Aladdin in the miniseries Arabian Nights. He did voice-over work for the 2002 Disney animated adventure film Lilo & Stitch.
Lee went on to appear in several direct-to-video films such as Dracula II: Ascension (2001), Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision (2003), and The Prophecy: Forsaken (2005). Lee is among the actors, producers and directors interviewed in the documentary The Slanted Screen(2006), directed by Jeff Adachi, about the representation of Asian and Asian American men in Hollywood.
Lee was also to perform as The King of Siam in the 2014 Opera Australia production of The King and I in Melbourne opposite Lisa McCune, but was injured, and Lou Diamond Phillips had to take his role.
Lee played Eddie in the 2007 sports comedy film Balls of Fury, in his first theatrical release film since 2002. Lee performed as The King of Siam in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I in a production at the London Palladium in 2000 opposite Elaine Paige. Lee made his operatic debut in the non-singing role of Pasha Selim in Hawaii Opera Theatre‘s production of Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio at the Blaisdell Concert Hall in Honolulu in February 2009.
In 2016, Lee played Hades Dai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny.
