Justin Hong-KeeMin[2] (born March 20, 1990) is an American actor. He began his acting career with roles in several Wong Fu productions.[3] He is known for portraying Ben Hargreeves in the Netflix original series The Umbrella Academy (2019–2024), and for portraying the title role in After Yang (2021).
Early life and education
Min is a second-generation Korean American from Cerritos, California.[1] He is fluent in Korean,[1] and is a second cousin of Ashley Park.[4] Min is a Christian, and still uses the Bible his parents gave to him when he was in middle school.[5]
He graduated from Cerritos High School in 2007.[6] He then attended Cornell University, where he served on the Student Assembly as the Minority Liaison; he graduated from the school's College of Arts & Sciences in 2011 with degrees in Government and English.[1][7][8]
Career
Prior to acting, Min was a journalist and photographer for various magazines.[3] He completed photography assignments for the J.A.M. Awards, inVISIBLE, and The Served.[9]
Min began acting in 2012. His early roles include appearances on TV series Faking It, CSI: Cyber, and Pure Genius.[9] He is a collaborator of Wong Fu Productions, an independent production company based in Los Angeles, having starred in their 2017 short film How I Became an Adult and their 2019 web series Dating After College, among other projects.[3][10]
In 2019, Min began starring in the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy as Ben Hargreeves. He was promoted to the main cast, from recurring character, in the second season.[11] As the character was only shown in flashbacks in the comic books, Min was not part of the early publicity for the series in order to keep his role a secret.[12] Min also used the expanded role in the television show to develop the character "from the ground up", and worked closely with Ethan Hwang, who played a young Ben, to ensure a "similar essence".[13][14]