Katie Leung is a Scottish actress active in the American and British film industries. She is famous for playing Harry Potter’s first love Cho Chang in the Harry Potter film series.
Wiki/Biography
Katie Liu Leung was born in Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom on Saturday, August 8, 1987 (age 33 in 2020). Her star sign is Leo. She spent her childhood in the Scottish cities of Ayr, Campbeltown, Motherwell, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
A childhood photo of Katie Leung and her brother
She completed her education at Hamilton College in South Lanarkshire. She originally wanted to go to art school but postponed her studies to film the Harry Potter series. She studied photography courses at Edinburgh College of Art and graduated in 2011. She also obtained a bachelor’s degree in acting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow.
appearance
Height: 5′ 4½”
Eye color: Black
Hair color: Black (dyed blonde and brown)
Family, Race, and Relationships
She is of Chinese descent.
Parents and siblings
Her father, Peter Leung, is a Hong Kong businessman who owns and operates an Asian-themed restaurant in Glasgow, Scotland. Her mother, Li Jiawei, is a Hong Kong banker. Her parents divorced when she was three years old.
Katie Leung and her parents
She has two older brothers, Jonathan and Darren Leung, and a younger sister, Violet.
Katie Leung and her brothers
Katie Leung and her sister
relation
In 2008, there were reports that she was in a relationship with actor Leo Ku.
Katie Leung and Leo Ku
She is dating a man named Eric Caira, who is a recruitment consultant.
Katie Leung and Eric Caira
Profession
Movie
She made her film debut in the 2005 American-British film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, where she played the role of Cho Chang, a Ravenclaw student and Harry Potter’s first love. She auditioned for the film for five minutes after her father saw a casting ad for the film; she had never thought of becoming an actress. Two weeks later, she was invited to a workshop and was chosen to play Cho Chang after beating out more than 3,000 other girls.
Katie Leung, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
She later played Zhao in the Harry Potter films Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). In 2017, she played Ngoc Minh Quan’s (Jackie Chan’s) daughter “Fan Quan” in the Sino-British co-production The Foreigner (2017).
Katie Leung, “Beyond the Storm” (2017)
She then starred in the British films Trainspotting 2 (2017) and Lockdown (2021). She also starred in the British short films Heroine (2018), Feast (2018) and Promises (2020).
television
In 2008, she made her television debut in the British TV series Agatha Christie’s Poirot, playing the role of “Mrs. Xu”.
Katie Leung in Agatha Christie’s Poirot (2009)
In 2013, she played the lead role “Ying” in the British television mini-series “Running”.
Katie Leung Starring: Run (2013)
In 2019, Katie played “Too-Ticky” in the Finnish-British animated family drama musical Moominvalley.
Too-Ticky in Moominvalley (2019) (voiced by Katie Leung)
She appeared in the British television series Father Brown (2013), One Child (2016), Middle America (2019), The Nest (2020), and Road Kill (2020).
theater
In 2012, she made her stage debut as Jung Chang in the play Wild Swans, which had its world premiere at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Katie Leung, The Wild Swans (2012)
She has starred in The World of Fulfillment at the National Theatre (2013), For You and Me at the Royal Court Theatre (2015), The Intelligent Gay Person’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism (iHo) at Hampstead Theatre (2016), Midsummer Snow at the Swan Theatre (2017) and White Pearls at the Royal Court Theatre (2019).
Awards and Achievements
- 2006 Asia Excellence Award Top 4 Outstanding Newcomer Award
- Scotland’s Most Stylish Woman 2007
- No. 80 on Cosmogirl’s 2007 Top 100 Hottest Beauties list
- 2014 BAFTA Brit Awards Best New Artist 21
dispute
Katie received a lot of media attention for her on-screen kiss with Daniel Radcliffe (who played Harry Potter) in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. While she received praise from many Harry Potter fans, she also suffered intense racism. Some fans created the website “I Hate Katie” where racist comments were posted against Katie. In March 2021, Katie admitted that she had suffered racism while filming the series and her publicist asked her to deny anything to do with it. In an interview, she said,
I remember them saying to me, ‘Oh, Katie, look, we haven’t seen these sites that people are talking about. You know, if someone asks you that question, you just say it’s not true. Say it’s not happening, and I just nodded my head. I said, ‘Okay, okay,’ even though I had seen it with my own eyes. I said, ‘Well, yeah, all I can say is that it’s all good.’
Favorite Things
- Actors: Aaron Kwok, Stephen Chow, Joaquin Phoenix
- Movies: Hot Fuzz (2007), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Crash (2004)
- Film directors: Edgar Wright, Sofia Coppola, Lars von Trier
- Comedians: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Sacha Baron Cohen
Facts/Trivia
- Katie, who admits to being an introvert and soft-spoken, spends her free time watching movies, playing video games, shopping, playing guitar and piano, listening to music, and spending quality time with family and friends.
- Since childhood, Katie has shown a keen interest in painting and photography.
Katie Leung’s Instagram post showing her paintings
- Katie’s Scottish accent gave her a huge advantage when she landed the role of Autumn in the Harry Potter series. According to Katie, the casting director asked the girls if any of them were from Scotland during the audition, and Katie was the only one from Scotland.
- In order to promote “Harry Potter”, the producers of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” sent Katie Leung to China in the second week of the film’s release.
- She also voiced the video game character Cho Chang in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009).
- After the Harry Potter series ended, Katie Leung was unsure whether to continue her acting career and hoped to attend art and design university. However, after appearing in the stage play The Wild Swans, she decided to continue acting and enrolled in a drama course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
- In 2007, she launched a children’s art competition and donated her own paintings (which sold at auction for nearly $1,300) to benefit the Prince’s Trust charity in Scotland, raising more than $137,000.
- In 2009, she donated a photograph called “Untitled” (which she shot) to the i:click 2009 competition of Sightsavers International, a charity dedicated to fighting blindness in poor countries.
Katie Leung’s Untitled
- In addition to English, she is fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin.
- According to Katie, her dream is to star in the American comedy series Modern Family or in a film directed by Sofia Coppola and Lars von Trier.
- She drinks occasionally and enjoys it.
- She also promotes and helps raise funds for Just Giving, a Chinese community centre based in London that works to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of the Chinese community in the UK, particularly the disadvantaged. The centre is also dedicated to preserving Chinese culture, art and identity.
- She loves animals very much and has a dog named “Rainbow Dash”.
Katie Leung and her pet dog
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education