Awkwafina is an American actress that is about to be the talk of Hollywood. She recently signed to make an appearance in the MCU!
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about her life and career!
- Her real name is Nora Lum
- She was born in June 2, 1988
- She is known professionally as Awkwafina
- She is an American actress and rapper
- She made her film breakthrough in 2018
- With her roles in the heist comedy film Ocean’s 8
- And the romantic comedy film Crazy Rich Asians
- She received critical praise for her performance in the comedy-drama film The Farewell (2019)
- She has made notable television appearances in Girl Code, Future Man, and Saturday Night Live
- Awkwafina has released two studio albums
- They are titled Yellow Ranger (2014) and In Fina We Trust (2018)
- She first gained popularity for her song “My Vag”
- Her song was a response to Mickey Avalon’s “My Dick”
- The music video has garnered over four million views on YouTube
- Lum was born in New York City
- To an ethnic Chinese-American father, Wally
- And a South Korean immigrant mother, a painter
- She grew up in Forest Hills, Queens
- One of her paternal great-grandfathers was a Chinese immigrant in the 1940s who opened the Cantonese restaurant Lum’s in Flushing, Queens
- Lum’s mother died when she was four
- And she was raised and influenced heavily by her paternal grandmother
- Lum attended LaGuardia High School
- There she played the trumpet
- And was trained in classical music and jazz
- At age 16, she adopted the stage name Awkwafina
- She said Awkwafina was “definitely a person I repressed” and an alter ego to her “quiet and more passive” personality during her college years
- Lum majored in journalism and women’s studies at the State University of New York at Albany
- From 2006 to 2008, Lum attended Beijing Language and Culture University in China
- There she studied Mandarin
- Lum says Charles Bukowski, Anaïs Nin, Joan Didion, Tom Waits, and Chet Baker were early influences
- Prior to her career in entertainment, she was an intern at local New York publications Gotham Gazette and the Times Union newspaper in Albany
- She was a publicity assistant for publishing house Rodale
- At San Diego Comic Con 2019, it was announced that Awkwafina will be part of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- Alongside Simu Liu as Shang-Chi and Tony Leung as the Mandarin
- In 2015, publisher Potter Style, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House, released Awkwafina’s NYC, Awkwafina’s travel guide to New York City
- Awkwafina has expressed support for Time’s Up
- A movement started by Hollywood celebrities against sexual harassment
- She has also advocated for the need for more female directors and against the stereotyping of Asians in media
- She has rejected roles that require accents
- Awkwafina was honored as Kore Asian Media’s Female Breakout of the Year in December 2017
- Awkwafina was featured in Gap’s “Logo Remix” campaign
- Which featured up-and-coming artists who “are remixing creative culture on their own terms”
- Such as SZA, Sabrina Claudio and Naomi Watanabe
- Awkwafina resides in Greenpoint, Brooklyn
- She will return for the Crazy Rich Asians sequels
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