Awkwafina facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Awkwafina
Awkwafina in June 2018
Born	Nora Lum (1988-06-02) June 2, 1988 (age 37) Stony Brook, New York, U.S.
Alma mater	University at Albany (BA)
Occupation	Actress rapper comedian
Years active	2005–present
Awards	Full list
Musical career
Origin	Queens, New York, U.S.
Genres	Alternative hip hop comedy hip hop East Coast hip hop
Instruments	Vocals
Associated acts	Dumbfoundead
Nora Lum
Chinese	林家珍
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Lín Jiāzhēn Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Làhm Gāajān IPA [lɐ̏m káː.tsɐ́n] Jyutping Lam4 Gaa1zan1

Nora Lum (born June 2, 1988), known professionally as Awkwafina (/ˌɔːkwəˈfiːnə/), is an American actress, comedian and rapper. She rose to prominence in 2012 when her rap song "My Vag" became popular on YouTube. She then released her debut album, Yellow Ranger (2014), and appeared on the MTV comedy series Girl Code (2014–2015). She expanded to films with supporting roles in the comedies Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016), Ocean's 8 (2018), Crazy Rich Asians (2018), and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019). For her starring role as a grieving young woman in The Farewell (2019), she won a Golden Globe Award.

Since 2020, Awkwafina has been a co-creator, writer, and executive producer of the Comedy Central series Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, where she also plays a fictionalized version of herself. In 2021, she portrayed Katy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. She has also performed voice roles in the animated films Storks (2016), The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019), Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), The Bad Guys (2022), The Little Mermaid, Migration (both 2023), Kung Fu Panda 4, and IF (both 2024). For starring and producing the TV movie Quiz Lady (2023), she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie.

Early life

Awkwafina was born in Stony Brook, Long Island, New York, to a Chinese American father and a Korean American mother. Her father, Wally, worked in the information technology field, and comes from a family of restaurateurs – his father emigrated to the United States in the 1940s, and opened the Cantonese restaurant Lum's in Flushing, Queens, one of the neighborhood's first Chinese restaurants. Her mother, Tia, was a painter who emigrated with her family to the United States from South Korea in 1972. She died from pulmonary hypertension when Awkwafina was four, and Awkwafina was subsequently raised by her father and paternal grandparents, becoming especially close to her paternal grandmother.

Awkwafina grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, and attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, where she played the trumpet and was trained in classical music and jazz. At age 15, she adopted the stage name Awkwafina, "definitely a person I repressed" and an alter ego to her "quiet and more passive" personality during her college years. From 2006 to 2008, she learned Mandarin at Beijing Language and Culture University to communicate with her paternal grandmother without barriers. She majored in journalism and women's studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York and graduated in 2011.

Career

Awkwafina began rapping at 13. She got her start producing music with GarageBand but eventually learned Logic Pro and Ableton. In 2012, her song "My Vag" became popular on YouTube. She wrote the song in college as a response to Mickey Avalon's "My Dick (Tribute to Nate)". She was fired from her job at a publishing house when her employer recognized her in the video. Her solo hip-hop album Yellow Ranger was released on February 11, 2014. Its 11 tracks include a number of her previous singles released on YouTube. In 2014, Awkwafina appeared in six episodes of the third and fourth seasons of Girl Code. In 2015 she co-hosted its spin-off, Girl Code Live, on MTV.

In 2016, she collaborated with comedian Margaret Cho on "Green Tea", a song that pokes fun at Asian stereotypes. She was part of the lineup at Tenacious D's Festival Supreme on October 25, 2014. She was also a disc jockey (DJ) at bars in New York. She is profiled in the 2016 documentary Bad Rap, an official selection at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. It puts the spotlight on her and Asian-American rappers such as Dumbfoundead, Rekstizzy and Lyricks. She released a 7-track EP, In Fina We Trust, on June 8, 2018; it won the 2019 A2IM Libera Award for Best Hip-Hop/Rap Album.

Awkwafina with Ken Jeong in 2018

Awkwafina hosted the short-form talk show web series Tawk for the digital production company Astronauts Wanted from 2015 to 2017. The first season premiered on YouTube and was picked up for exclusive streaming on Verizon's Go90 platform. It was an Official Honoree at the 2016 Webby Awards and was nominated for a 2016 Streamy Award in the News and Culture category. In 2016 she played a supporting role as Christine, a member of Kappa Nu in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, and voiced Quail in the animated comedy film Storks. In 2018 she starred in the indie comedy Dude, playing Rebecca, one of four best friends. She was among the principal cast in Ocean's 8, the all-female spinoff to the Ocean's Trilogy. She then co-starred in the film Crazy Rich Asians, directed by Jon M. Chu, playing Goh Peik Lin, a Singaporean college friend of lead character Rachel Chu (Constance Wu). She had a recurring role in the Hulu original series Future Man in 2017. She hosted the 2018 iHeartRadio MMVAs.

Awkwafina hosted the October 6, 2018, episode of Saturday Night Live, becoming the second East Asian-American woman to host the show (after Lucy Liu, whose episode Awkwafina cites as her inspiration to one day be famous enough to host SNL). She did an impression of Sandra Oh, who later in the season became the first East Asian-Canadian woman to host an SNL episode and the third East Asian woman to host overall.

In 2019, Awkwafina starred in the film The Farewell, directed by Lulu Wang. She played Billi, a writer who visits her ill grandmother in China. The film received critical acclaim. Awkwafina received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, becoming the first person of Asian descent to win a Golden Globe Award in any lead actress film category, after being only the sixth woman of Asian descent to be nominated in the lead actress in a musical or comedy category. In the same year, she starred as avatar Ming Fleetfoot in the film Jumanji: The Next Level, which was a commercial success. In July 2019, Awkwafina was cast as Katy in Marvel Studios' Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings alongside actors Simu Liu and Tony Leung Chiu-wai. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the film was released in theaters on September 3, 2021, earning critical praise and grossing $430.5 million. She won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Shang-Chi. In August 2019, Disney announced that Awkwafina would voice Sisu the dragon in the animated film Raya and the Last Dragon, which was released on March 5, 2021. Awkwafina improvised much of her dialogue for the film, drawing comparisons to Robin Williams' performance as the Genie in Aladdin.

As of 2020, Awkwafina stars in the comedy series Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens; she is also a writer and executive producer of that show. As part of the promotional campaign, she recorded new announcements for the 7 train of the New York City Subway, making jokes, such as "This is Hunters Point Avenue, a friendly reminder that seats are for people, not your bag" and "This is 46th Street, which is a lucky number, I just learned that on the internet. Also learned that pigeons and doves are the same things, WHAT?!", at every stop. These recordings were used until the series premiered on January 22. In a season one episode, Simu Liu made a guest appearance before the release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. In October 2023, National Geographic announced that Awkwafina narrated the documentary series A Real Bug's Life.

Other ventures

Before launching her entertainment career, she worked as an intern at the Gotham Gazette in New York City; as an intern at the Times Union newspaper in Albany, New York; and as a publicity assistant for publishing house Rodale Books, which fired her after they discovered her music videos. She later worked at a vegan bodega. In 2015, she released a New York City guidebook, Awkwafina's NYC. On May 16, 2019, she headlined The Infatuation's annual food festival, EEEEEATSCON where she spoke about her upbringing in Queens, and her family's Cantonese restaurant.

Filmography

Key

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2016	Bad Rap	Herself	Documentary
	Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising	Christine
	Storks	Quail	Voice role
2018	Dude	Rebecca
	Ocean's 8	Constance
	Crazy Rich Asians	Goh Peik Lin
2019	The Farewell	Billi Wang
	Paradise Hills	Yu
	The Angry Birds Movie 2	Courtney	Voice role
	Between Two Ferns: The Movie	Herself
	Jumanji: The Next Level	Ming Fleetfoot
2020	The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run	Otto	Voice role
2021	Breaking News in Yuba County	Mina
Raya and the Last Dragon	Sisu	Voice role
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings	Katy
Swan Song	Kate
2022	The Bad Guys	Ms. Tarantula	Voice role
	The Bad Guys in Maraschino Ruby		Voice role; short film
2023	Renfield	Rebecca Quincy
	The Little Mermaid	Scuttle	Voice role
	Once Upon a Studio	Sisu	Voice role; short film; archival recordings
	Quiz Lady	Anne
	Migration	Chump	Voice role
2024	Migration: Fly Hard		Voice role; short film
	Kung Fu Panda 4	Zhen	Voice role
	Kung Fu Panda: Dueling Dumplings		Voice role; short film
	IF	Bubble IF	Voice role
	Jackpot!	Katie
2025	The Bad Guys in Little Lies and Alibis	Ms. Tarantula	Voice role; short film
	The Bad Guys 2		Voice role; in production
	Wildwood	Mrs. Evie McKeel
TBA	The Man with the Bag	0TBA	Filming

Television

Web

Discography

Awards, nominations and recognitions

Awkwafina was honored as Kore Asian Media's Female Breakout of the Year in 2017. For her performance in the comedy-drama film The Farewell, she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, the Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Virtuoso Award, among numerous other nominations. Alongside the film's ensemble, she was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Awkwafina also received a nomination for the BAFTA Rising Star Award.

For starring and producing in the 2023 TV Movie Quiz Lady she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie.

See also

In Spanish: Awkwafina para niños

• Chinese people in New York City
• Koreans in New York City
• Asian Americans in arts and entertainment