Aaron Yoo

Aaron Yoo

Active - 2007 - 2017  |   Born - May 12, 1979 in Dallas, Texas, United States  |   Genres - Drama, Thriller, Romance

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Biography by AllMovie

Born in Texas, actor Aaron Yoo attended the University of Pennsylvania and initially pursued a career in writing before a summer workshop in Shakespeare opened him up to the theretofore untapped challenge of drama. (Yoo later admitted that he unequivocally bombed in the said workshop, and that the difficulty of the experience compelled him to travel to New York and learn the acting craft.) The performer achieved his career breakthrough in 2007, with a plethora of supporting roles in A-listers that often cast him as best friends and/or emotional supports for the lead characters. That year alone, Yoo played the buddy of the lead character in the teen-oriented thriller Disturbia (2007), the hyperkinetic friend of a high-school debate team member in Rocket Science (2007), and a WWII-era Japanese teenager who must contend with extreme bigotry and discrimination when he and his family are unjustly thrown into an internment camp in Desmond Nakano's inspirational drama American Pastime (2007). In 2008, Yoo portrayed Choi, an Asian-American MIT student and member of a Las Vegas card-counting ring, in Robert Luketic's inspired-by-real-events thriller 21.

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Factsheet

  • Initially pursued a career in writing, but a summer Shakespeare workshop got him interested in acting.
  • Experienced his first brush with fame when the film Rocket Science (2007) received a good reception at the Sundance Film Festival.
  • Had his appendix removed shortly before he began filming the remake of Friday the 13th (2009). As soon as he was cleared for work, he was hanging upside down from the rafters for a scene.
  • Was a fan of the 2003 book Bringing Down the House and asked his manager to get him cast in the film adaptation. He eventually landed the role of Choi in 21 (2008), the film based on that book.
  • Asked the producers of his show The Tomorrow People to consider putting his dog on the show as a "Tomorrow Dog."