Kenny Wong

Kenny Wong Tak-bun is a Hong Kong actor and former model. Born in Tsuen Wan, he left school after Form 4 and worked in a range of jobs, including shipyard welding, construction and retail, before his height led to part time modelling. He entered the industry through a modelling contest organised by Asia Television and then joined TVB’s fifteenth artiste training class, which ran from 1986 to 1987. He became a TVB contract artiste in 1988 and remained with the station for much of his career, appearing in series such as Healing Hands, War and Beauty, The Dance of Passion and When Heaven Burns. He also contributed to the theme song of When Heaven Burns. His film credits include Cold War 2, Men on the Dragon, Shock Wave 2 and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In. In 2021 he played Chak Kwok-keung in the ViuTV series Ossan’s Love. He has also worked in stage productions.

He entered the television industry in 1988 and his first contract with TVB ran to 1993 without renewal. His first film came in 1992, a leading part in 聊齋三之燈草和尚. He signed with TVB again in 1997 and stayed until 2017, and the role he himself points to as his first memorable one is in Healing Hands (妙手仁心) in 1998. Leading roles arrived comparatively late, with 鐵馬戰車 in 2014 and 刀下留人 in 2015.

Ossan's Love HK (大叔的愛, 2021) was his first comedy after more than three decades of largely serious work. He has described receiving the script and immediately asking himself whether he could carry comic effect at all, and he accepted that the part needed him to play considerably broader than his usual register. His stated method was to keep the reading simple, stay inside the world of the scene so the behaviour came out by itself, and defer to the director's judgement on how far to push it.

In his own words. "Do not think about it in too complicated a way. Keep it purer." (Interview with Madame Figaro Hong Kong, 16 October 2021, on his approach to playing a scene.) "When you are inside the dramatic world of that moment, the matching action comes out of you naturally." (Interview with Madame Figaro Hong Kong, 16 October 2021, on how he finds physical behaviour in a role.) "You have to trust the director's judgement." (Interview with Madame Figaro Hong Kong, 16 October 2021, on working in a register that was new to him.) "A comedy can never succeed on one character alone. The script, the director and the people you play against, and the mutual trust the group builds while shooting, that is what matters." (Interview with Madame Figaro Hong Kong, 16 October 2021, on the making of Ossan's Love HK (大叔的愛).) "I do not want to put limits on myself. For an actor, freshness counts for a lot." (Interview with Madame Figaro Hong Kong, 16 October 2021, on choosing unfamiliar kinds of work.)