jo-anne lee
jo-anne lee
jo-anne lee
ACTOR | PRODUCER
SAG-AFTRA | BASED IN NEW YORK
jo-anne lee
ACTOR | PRODUCER
SAG-AFTRA | BASED IN NEW YORK
I guess you can say I’m a bit of a world traveler. I was born in Singapore, a kid who apologized to gates if I bumped into them, but wanted to be cool like Jo Polniaczek of ‘The Facts of Life’, lived in Hong Kong, Columbus, Indiana (I know, super exotic), Melbourne, Australia where I spent over three years finding myself, developing a strong pool hustle…oh yeah and I guess getting a dance degree. I developed a keen eye for observing people and being a chameleon - a useful trait for someone always a little bit on the fringe, an outsider looking in.
I got myself to New York with dreams of being a dancer, which I did for many years performing and touring with a contemporary dance company. But as life in New York will do, ended up not only dancing, but literally falling into acting via a dive roll and a punch, and landed my first acting gig as the lead badass avenging assassin in Timothy Haskell’s fight play “The Jaded Assassin”.
Post production led to me to belatedly study kung fu and muay thai and it’s led to a bunch of cool things where I get to pretend I’m a total badass kicking the s*** out of people.
I played the stunt double/Keanu handler in the NYC cast of “Point Break Live”, a theatre parody of the cult classic movie, and was the lead in the indie short action film “Arson”.
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About me
While I can play a killer bad ass, I’ve also landed roles as the supportive but sarcastic best friend, the unamused deadpan ___ (insert bartender/hostess/nurse etc), making any Asian parent proud as an expert vascular surgeon on
New Amsterdam (NBC) and most recently as an ADA on FBI: Most Wanted (CBS). And I just booked my first recurring role on a popular cable show!
I’ve studied acting with Caymichael Patten, Seamus McNally, on-camera technique with Matt Newton and Van Hansis at the MN Acting Studio and most recently Ted Sluberski.
"A Significant Problem", a short film I co-wrote and co-produced, about a marine special operative who has to deal with a time-sensitive bomb defusing situation and a collapsing marriage, is an official selection of the Florida Film Festival, the Atlanta Comedy Film Festival, Dances with Films Festival and the upcoming Garden State Film Festival! And the screenplay for the TV pilot I'm writing and developing as a starring vehicle for myself has just made the quarterfinals in Screencraft's TV Pilot competition.
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For all the spinning roundhouses and ass-kicking, I promise I’m actually a real softie and am a blubbering mess watching dog movies. I love this adventure called Life, and I love the people who make up a part of this so very interesting journey.
Now let’s go tell some stories.
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