Matt Yang King is an American actor. He appears in the Netflix series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' as Appa and Momo, in Pixar's ''

Elemental An elemental is a mythic supernatural being that is described in occult and alchemy, alchemical works from around the time of the European Renaissance, and particularly elaborated in the 16th century works of Paracelsus. According to Paracelsu ...

'' and the

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

series ''Not Quite Narwhal,'' as well as '' Riverdale'', '' Powers'', '' 24'', ''

Strong Medicine ''Strong Medicine'' is an American medical drama with a focus on feminist politics, health issues and class conflict that aired on the Lifetime network from 2000 to 2006. It was created and produced in part by Whoopi Goldberg, who made cam ...

'', and ''

Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

''. 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 ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a 2004 massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment for Windows and Mac OS X. Set in the '' Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of War ...

'' franchise, ''

Cyberpunk 2077 ''Cyberpunk 2077'' is a 2020 action role-playing game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. Based on Mike Pondsmith's ''Cyberpunk (role-playing game), Cyberpunk'' tabletop game series, the plot is set in the fictional metrop ...

'', '' G.I. Joe: Renegades'', '' Transformers: Robots in Disguise'', '' Fortnite'', '' Supah Ninjas'', and ''Marvel Heroes''.

Early life

King studied acting at

New York University Tisch School of the Arts The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic, and media arts school of New York University. Founded on August 17, 1965, as the School of the Arts at New York University, Tisch ...

and lived in New York until 1998, when he left to tour the United States with the musical ''

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British ocean liner that sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 as a result of striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers a ...

'', playing Quartermaster Robert Hichens and Bandsman Bricoux. The tour began in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Career

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 ''

'' 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 A splinter (also known as a sliver) is a fragment of a larger object, or a foreign body that penetrates or is purposely injected into a body. The foreign body must be lodged inside tissue to be considered a splinter. Splinters may cause initia ...

and Shredder in ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT)''. King is the voice of

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

in numerous television ads and also voiced both

Liu Kang Liu Kang () is a fictional character of the ''Mortal Kombat'' fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios. Depicted as Earthrealm's greatest warrior and champion, he debuted in the Mortal Kombat (1992 video game), original 1 ...

and Fujin in ''

Mortal Kombat 11 ''Mortal Kombat 11'' is a 2019 fighting game developed by NetherRealm Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the eleventh main installment in the ''Mortal Kombat'' series and a sequel to '' Mortal Kombat X'' (20 ...

'' and also voiced

Kung Lao Kung Lao (Chinese: 空佬) is a character in the ''Mortal Kombat'' fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios. He debuted in ''Mortal Kombat II'' (1993) as a Shaolin Kung Fu, Shaolin monk and close friend of series protagonis ...

in the animated film '' Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms''. Additionally, King was one of the creators and hosts of the long-running podcast, GeeksOn, with Aaron Hendricks, Donald Marshall, and Peter Gamble Robinson.

Film and television

King has had recurring roles on '' Riverdale'', ''

'', '' 24'', and ''

''. He starred opposite

Danny Huston Daniel Sallis Huston (born May 14, 1962) is an American-British actor, director and screenwriter. A member of the Huston family of filmmakers, he is the son of director John Huston and half-brother of actress Anjelica Huston. He is known for ...

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 ''

: The Musical,'' East West Players' ''Yankee Dawg You Die'' as Bradley with Sab Shimono and ''

The Tempest ''The Tempest'' is a Shakespeare's plays, play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, th ...

'' as Caliban with fellow NYU Tisch alumnus

Daniel Dae Kim Daniel Dae Kim (born August 4, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for his many roles in network television and theater. In 2025, ''Time'' magazine listed him as one of the world's 100 most influential people. On television, he portray ...

, and an

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

award-winning hip-hop version of ''

The Two Gentlemen of Verona ''The Two Gentlemen of Verona'' is a Shakespearean comedy, comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1589 and 1593. It is considered by some to be Shakespeare's first play, and is often seen as showing his first ten ...

'' called ''2G's'' at Los Angeles' Sacred Fools Theater.

Writing

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... ndracism." ''The Harrowing'', his script with Peter Gamble featuring an

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

man as the lead in a

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

is in development.

Crowdfunding projects

In 2017, King collaborated with cartoonist Ellipsis Stephens and fellow producers

Phil LaMarr Phil LaMarr is an American actor and comedian. He was one of the original featured cast members on the sketch comedy television series '' Mad TV'', where he stayed for five seasons. His voice acting roles in animated series include the Sam B of ' ...

and Danielle Stephens to bring Stephen's webcomic, '' Goblins'', to life as an animated series. The ''Goblins Animated'' campaign on

Indiegogo Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows peo ...

was to produce a five-minute long mega-trailer/pilot that could be used to garner more interest in the project. King himself voices one of the characters, Fumbles. Notable voice actors make up the rest of the cast, including

as Complains of Names,

Billy West William Richard Werstine (born 1952), known professionally as Billy West, is an American voice actor, comedian, radio personality, impressionist and musician. His voice roles include Bugs Bunny in the 1996 film ''Space Jam'', the title characte ...

as Minmax,

Maurice LaMarche Maurice LaMarche (born March 30, 1958) is a Canadian voice actor. Across a career spanning more than four decades he has voiced Chief Quimby on Inspector Gadget, Egon Spengler on ''The Real Ghostbusters'', The Brain on ''Animaniacs'' and its spi ...

as Forgath,

Jim Cummings James Jonah Cummings (born November 3, 1952) is an American voice actor. Beginning his career in the 1980s, he has appeared in over 400 titles. Cummings has frequently worked with the Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros., serving as the offic ...

as Thaco,

Tara Strong Tara Lyn Strong (; born February 12, 1973) is a Canadian and American actress. She is known for her voice work in animation, websites, and video games. Strong's voice roles include animated series such as '' The Powerpuff Girls'', '' The Fair ...

as Saves a Fox, Matthew Mercer as Big Ears, Jennifer Hale as Kin, and

Steve Blum Steven Jay Blum (; born April 29, 1960) is an American voice actor. Known for his distinctively deep voice, his roles include Spike Spiegel from the anime series ''Cowboy Bebop''; Amon from ''The Legend of Korra''; Heatblast, Ghostfreak, and ...

as Kore. The mega-trailer is currently under production. In 2012, King created a

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

project for his steampunk webseries called ''The World of Steam''. Written, directed, and produced by King, the show is set in a Twilight Zone-type

steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and Applied arts, aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century Industrial Revolution, industrial steam engine, steam-powered machinery. Steampun ...

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. At the time, the series was the highest-grossing webseries ever on Kickstarter. The first episode, ''The Clockwork Heart'', was released as a webisode in 2013 and contains music by composer

Bear McCreary Bear McCreary (born February 17, 1979) is an American composer of film, television, and video game scores. His work includes the scores of the television series '' Battlestar Galactica'' (2004), '' Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'', '' Black Sails'', '' ...

. The remainder of the series is still in the works and is being developed for television.

Steampunk work

After the creation of the ''World of Steam'' webseries in 2012, King was seen as a leader in the

Steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and Applied arts, aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century Industrial Revolution, industrial steam engine, steam-powered machinery. Steampun ...

creative community. 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 Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

, H.P. Lovecraft, K.W. Jeter, Robert Howard, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and China Mieville, 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," and was cited in the 2016 book, ''Like Clockwork: Steampunk Pasts, Presents, and Futures'', edited by Rachel A. Bowser and Brian Croxall. His '' Love, Death and Robots'' episode, "Good Hunting," is Asian-inspired Steampunk. 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''.

Convention appearances

Filmography

Live action roles

Television

Film

Voice over roles

Film

Television

Video games

Stage

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:King, Matthew Yang Living people American male actors of Chinese descent American male film actors American male television actors American male video game actors American male voice actors American male musical theatre actors Animal impersonators New York University alumni Tisch School of the Arts alumni 20th-century American male actors 21st-century American male actors Hall High School (Connecticut) alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)