Chris Tashima Movies and Career Information

Chris Tashima (born in 1960, in Cambridge, MA) is a Japanese American actor and director. He is co-founder of the entertainment company Cedar Grove Productions and Artistic Director of its Asian American theatre company, Cedar Grove OnStage. He is the son of U.S. Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Tashima was born on the East Coast, while his father attended Harvard Law School, but grew up in California. He lived in Pasadena, where he began Suzuki Method violin at age 6. His family moved to Berkeley, where he lived for nine years, attending The College Preparatory School. He returned to Southern California, graduating from John Marshall High School (1978). He attended UC Santa Cruz (Porter College), where he studied film production. He also attended UCLA, and took additional filmmaking courses at Visual Communications (VC). He started his acting career at East West Players in 1985. Tashima stars as the romantic lead opposite Joan Chen in Eric Byler's Americanese, an unreleased feature from IFC First Take. The film won two awards after its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival, including a Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Ensemble Cast.