Katie Leung facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Katie Leung
|
|||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 梁佩詩 | |||||||||||||
Leung at the 2020 German Comic Con Home Edition
|
|||||||||||||
| Born | 8 August 1987 Dundee, Scotland
|
||||||||||||
| Alma mater | |||||||||||||
| Occupation | Actress | ||||||||||||
| Years active | 2004–present | ||||||||||||
| Children | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 梁佩詩 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 梁佩诗 | ||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
Katie Leung (born on August 8, 1987) is a Scottish actress. She became famous for playing Cho Chang in the Harry Potter movies. Cho Chang was Harry Potter's first crush in the films.
Katie also played Caitlyn Kiramman in the Netflix animated series Arcane. She was also Ash in the Amazon Prime Video sci-fi series The Peripheral. In British TV, she is known for her main roles in shows like One Child and Strangers. She also had a supporting role in the police show Annika.
Contents
Early life and family
Katie Leung was born in Dundee, Scotland. Her father, Peter Leung, was a businessman from Hong Kong. He owned restaurants and started a company in Glasgow. Her mother, Kar Wai Li, was a banker.
Katie's parents divorced when she was three years old. She stayed in Scotland with her father, stepmother, and siblings. Her mother moved back to Hong Kong. Because of her father's job, Katie lived in different towns. These included Ayr, Hamilton, and Motherwell. She went to secondary school at Hamilton College.
Acting career
Starting with Harry Potter
Katie's father saw an advertisement for a casting call for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He suggested she try out for a role. Katie waited in line for four hours for a five-minute audition. She didn't think she would get the part.
Two weeks later, she was called back for another try-out. She was chosen to play Cho Chang. She got the role over 3,000 other girls. Katie has said that her Scottish accent might have helped her. The casting director asked if anyone was from Scotland, and only Katie raised her hand.
Katie remembered her first Harry Potter audition as a special memory. Both her parents, who were separated, went with her. She said it was a "really nice moment" because they hadn't seen each other in a long time. To promote Goblet of Fire, Warner Bros. sent Katie to China. This was unusual at the time, as celebrities didn't often visit that market.
Katie played Cho Chang in later Harry Potter films too. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, her character became Harry Potter's first romantic interest. Katie and her co-star Daniel Radcliffe (who played Harry) shared a kiss on screen. This kiss got a lot of attention from the media.
Most fans liked Katie, but some created mean websites. They posted unkind messages about her background. This was upsetting for her at the time. In 2021, Katie shared more about these experiences. She said her publicists told her to deny it if interviewers asked.
In 2007, Katie was named Scotland's most stylish female. She was also called the hottest Scotswoman by Scotland on Sunday. In July 2007, she was chosen to be the main girl in a music video. It was for the song Love Coming Home by Leo Ku.
Her first role after Harry Potter was in the TV show Agatha Christie's Poirot. She played Hsui Tai in an episode called "Cat Among the Pigeons" in 2008.
Continuing her acting journey
After the Harry Potter movies ended, Katie wasn't sure if she wanted to keep acting. But she felt inspired after taking a drama course. This course was at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In 2011, she got her first stage role. She played Jung Chang in the play Wild Swans.
Katie said that acting on stage is different from film. She found it "weirdly exciting" to get things right the first time. The play first showed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in February 2012. Then it came to Motherwell and later to London.
In 2012, Katie starred in the TV show Run. She played Ying, a Chinese immigrant living in Brixton. In 2013, Katie acted in a play called The World of Extreme Happiness. It was about migrant workers in China. She played Sunny, a female worker.
In 2014, Katie was cast as Mei in the TV miniseries One Child. Mei was a Chinese girl adopted by an American mother and British father. In the story, Mei is asked to go back to her birthplace, Guangzhou. Her birth mother needed help to save her son. The show was filmed in London and Hong Kong. It aired in 2014 and 2016. Katie's acting was praised as "beautifully understated."
In 2016, Katie was in a play called ... Guide to ... with a Key to the Scriptures. In 2017, she acted with Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan in the movie The Foreigner. She played Fan, Jackie Chan's character's daughter. After that, she had a role in the TV drama Strangers.
More recently, Katie has been in several TV shows. She played DC Blair Ferguson in Annika. She voiced Caitlyn in the Netflix series Arcane. She also played Ash in the Amazon Prime Video series The Peripheral.
In January 2022, Katie's essay "Getting into Character" was published. It was in a book called East Side Voices. In her essay, Katie wrote about how her background affected her life and acting career.
In 2023, Katie starred in the TV series The Chemistry of .... In 2024, she appeared in the BBC One miniseries Nightsleeper. In September 2024, Katie joined the cast of Bridgerton as Lady Araminta Gun for its fourth season.
Helping others
In 2007, Katie helped The Prince's Trust charity. She launched a children's art competition. She donated one of her own paintings, which sold for £960. This helped the charity raise £100,000. In 2009, she gave a photo to Sightsavers International. This helped raise money to treat and prevent blindness in poorer countries.
In 2018, Katie ran a 10K marathon for My Body Back. This charity helps people who have been through difficult experiences.
Personal life
Katie put off going to art college and university to film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. During that time, she wasn't sure if she wanted to continue acting after Harry Potter. She thought about studying art and design at university.
Katie studied painting for a short time. Then she got a photography degree from Edinburgh College of Art. After that, she went to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. There, she completed a degree in acting.
On August 19, 2018, Katie was part of her Harry Potter co-star Afshan Azad's wedding.
On January 1, 2023, Katie shared on Instagram that her son was born on Halloween of the previous year. Her pregnancy was included in the second season of her show Annika, which she filmed before her son was born.
Katie speaks Cantonese fluently and knows some basic Mandarin. She is also a vegetarian.
Film and TV roles
Katie Leung has appeared in many films and television shows. Here are some of her notable roles:
Films
- 2005: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as Cho Chang
- 2007: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as Cho Chang
- 2009: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as Cho Chang
- 2010: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 as Cho Chang
- 2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 as Cho Chang
- 2017: T2 Trainspotting as Nurse
- 2017: The Foreigner as Fan Quan
- 2021: Locked Down as Natasha
Television shows
- 2008: Agatha Christie's Poirot as Hsui Tai
- 2013: Run as Ying
- 2014: One Child as Mei Ashley
- 2018: Strangers as Lau Chen
- 2020: The Nest as Eleanor
- 2021–2023: Annika as DC Blair Ferguson
- 2021–2024: Arcane as Caitlyn Kiramman (voice role)
- 2022: The Peripheral as Ash
- 2023: The Chemistry of ... as Maggie Cassidy
- 2024: Nightsleeper as Rachel Li
- 2026: Bridgerton as Lady Araminta Gun
Video Games (voice roles)
- 2007: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as Cho Chang
- 2009: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as Cho Chang
- 2022: Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga as Rose Tico
Theatre roles
Katie has also performed in several plays:
- 2012: Wild Swans as Jung Chang
- 2013: The World of Extreme Happiness as Sunny
- 2016: ... Guide to ... with a Key to the Scriptures as Sooze
- 2017: Snow in Midsummer as Dou Yi
Awards and recognition
Katie Leung has received several awards and nominations for her work:
- 2007: Scottish Style Awards - Most Stylish Female (Won)
- 2007: CosmoGirl - Hot 100 List (Won)
- 2008: MTV Movie Awards - Best Kiss (with Daniel Radcliffe) (Nominated)
- 2014: BAFTA - Breakthrough Brit (Won)
See also
In Spanish: Katie Leung para niños
