It does take time for some actors to find work once a TV series ends. Hawaii Five-O star Masi Oka has been out there. What’s he been doing?
Let’s get caught up some on the actor’s life with a little help from Looper. In case you forgot, he played Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Max Bergman on the reboot.
Yes, this is not the same as your father’s favorite show starring Jack Lord. The reboot was under Peter M. Lenkov and Alex Kurtzman of Leonard Freeman’s creation.
‘Hawaii Five-O’ Star Left Show To Produce His Own Work
So, why did Oka leave the show? “He’s producing a movie,” Lenkov said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “He’s spending a lot of time in Japan these days.
“He wants to produce more, and he’s very entrepreneurial […] he wants to pursue other interests, so it really just came down to that,” Lenkov said. “And I held onto (his character) as long as I could.” Oka would go on to produce movies and offer his voice to different animated film works.
Now, you have seen the former Hawaii Five-O star on shows like Heroes and Mozart in the Jungle. He did offer up his voice as an antagonist in Nick Bruno and Troy Quane’s movie Spies in Disguise. Oka plays a physically imposing arms dealer named Katsu Kimura.
Oka Did Voiceover Work In Film Alongside Reba McEntire
The movie also features a spot for country music legend Reba McEntire, too. Then, in 2021, Oka had another voiceover project in Disney+’s Star Wars: Visions. He was in The Ninth Jedi as a young Jedi named Ethan. The character runs into a trap in his quest to revive the age-old order of the Jedi.
Oka did leave Hawaii Five-O to produce and he did it in 2017 with Death Note. It stars Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield and did get an adaptation work-up from Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s manga series.
Then, in 2019 and 2021, Oka was an executive producer for a game called Outer Wilds and the follow-up titled Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye. This was before moving along to other projects. One titled The Promised Land is right now in pre-production.
Oh, but there is other work as well. Look at this. He’s producing an animated Mega Man film. Additionally, Oka is a part of Doug Liman’s Live Die Repeat and Repeat and Andy Muschietti’s Attack on Titan. While all of this production work might make you think he’s forgotten about acting, that’s not true.
You can see him with Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock. They all star in a David Leitch film titled Bullet Train. It is in post-production right now, so stay tuned for its release.
