Lawrence Kao

Lawrence Kao is an American actor, best known for his roles as Tommy Wah in the Netflix series Wu Assassins, Donnie Lu in the Fox series Sleepy Hollow, Van in the CW series The Originals and Tim in the AMC series, The Walking Dead.

Early life Kao was born and raised in Hacienda Heights, California, where he later graduated from Glen A. Wilson High School. He played Lysander in his high school's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, during one of the in-class previews of the show, Kao was falsely arrested for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. If convicted, the minimum sentencing would have been 40 years behind bars. Kao was later released in the absence and lack of probable cause, giving him enough time to make it before the closing night of the show. After being forced to contemplate his life inside jail, Kao realized he wanted to pursue acting as a profession.

Kao received his B.A. in theater from the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where he was a part of Kaba Modern dance team. Within the dancing community on campus, he befriended the Kinjaz dance team cofounders Mike Song and Anthony Lee. Starting out, he found that including his dancing credentials on his resume would always elicit a dance request at auditions, so he removed it after several incidents. Kao reprised his role in the sequel film Fistful of Vengeance. It was released on February 17, 2022.

Dance After graduating from UCI, Kao continued working as a dancer, and later competed in the first season of MTV's America's Best Dance Crew with his college dance team, Kaba Modern.

As of June 2019, Kao is dancing with the Kinjaz dance team.

Filmography Film Year Title Role Notes2015 Circle Asian Kid 2017 I Hate You Chi 2018 Silver Lake Eric 2019 Lucky Fifty Jay 2022 Fistful of Vengeance Tommy Wah

Television Year Title Role Notes 2012 The Walking Dead Tim 3 episodes 2013 Hawaii Five-0 Ty Amano Episode: "A ia la aku" 2014 NCIS: Los Angeles John Stikler Episode: "One More Chance" 2015–2016 The Originals Van 5 episodes 2017 Sleepy Hollow Donnie Lu 2 episodes Girlboss Sonny Episode: "Motherf*ckin' Bar Graphs"2019 The Purge Andy Tran 2 episodes Wu Assassins Tommy Wah Main cast 2021 Leverage: Redemption Joseph Cheng Episode: "The Double-Edged Sword Job" 2022–2023Walker: Independence Kai Main role 2024 Law & Order Chris Wu Episode: "Inconvenient Truth" 2026 Avatar: The Last Airbender Avatar Roku Episode: "Something Broken"