Tamlyn Tomita (born 27 January 1966; age 58) is a Japanese-American actress who played Commodore Oh in the first season of Star Trek: Picard.
Prior to her Trek appearance, she appeared in a similar series as the XO of the titular space station, Lt. Cmdr. Laurel Takashima, in the Babylon 5 pilot television film, "The Gathering" (1993), which became a fierce contemporary franchise contender of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the 1990s. The pilot also features Andreas Katsulas, Patricia Tallman, John Fleck, and David Sage.
Life and career[]
Tomita was born at a military base in Okinawa during the period the island was under US administration. Her father was a Japanese-American soldier stationed there. Her mother immigrated to Okinawa from the Philippines after World War II. She grew up in San Fernando Valley, California and attended UCLA where she studied to become a history teacher. During her junior year at the university, she auditioned for and won the part of Kumiko in The Karate Kid Part II (1986, with Eddie Smith and George O'Hanlon, Jr.), a role she later revived in the film franchise's spin-off series Cobra Kai.
After making her debut in The Karate Kid Part II, Tomita had key roles in films such as Come See the Paradise (1990, with Colm Meaney, Caroline Junko King, Becky Ann Baker, George P. Wilbur, Allan Graf, Kevin McDermott, Ben Slack, and David Carpenter), The Joy Luck Club (1993, co-starring Rosalind Chao and France Nuyen and featuring Lauren Tom and Nicholas Guest), Four Rooms (1995), The Last Man on Planet Earth (1999, with Elizabeth Dennehy, Nancy Hower, Martha Hackett, Cliff DeYoung, Azalea Davila, written by Kenneth Biller, and directed by Les Landau), The Killing Jar (1997), Living Out Loud (1998, with Jenette Goldstein), Robot Stories (2003), The Day After Tomorrow (2004, with Kenneth Welsh, Mimi Kuzyk, Sheila McCarthy, and Aaron Lustig), Only the Brave (2006), The Eye (2008), Tekken (2010, with Cary-Hiroyuki), Daddy (2015, with John Rubinstein and Richard Riehle), and The Good Neighbor (2016).
She also made (recurrent) television appearances in such popular science fiction franchises as Quantum Leap (with Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell), Heroes, the Stargate franchise (with Robert Picardo), Eureka (with Wil Wheaton), and Prime Video's The Man in the High Castle (with Rick Worthy), co-starring in the case of Heroes alongside several other Star Trek alumni such as Zachary Quinto, Robert Knepper, Greg Grunberg, George Takei, Kate Vernon, and Tami-Adrian George
Aside from her genre television appearances, Tomita also had recurring roles on such television productions as Santa Barbara, Vanishing Son (and its telefilms of the same name), Sisters (with Stephen Collins, Steven Culp, and Nan Martin), The Burning Zone (starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan and James Black, with Paul Guilfoyle, Tony Jay, René Auberjonois, Joel Swetow, Alicia Coppola, Tim Ryan, and Alan Scarfe), Nash Bridges (with Mariette Hartley, Castulo Guerra, Caroline Lagerfelt, and Daniel Roebuck), Crossing Jordan (starring Miguel Ferrer, with Nan Martin), JAG (with Scott Lawrence, Zoe McLellan, Randy Oglesby, Dean Stockwell, Leon Russom, Steve Rankin, Alan Dale, and Faran Tahir, directed by Terrence O'Hara and Richard Compton), 24 (with Michelle Forbes, Jude Ciccolella, Penny Johnson, Billy Burke, Daniel Dae Kim, Steven Culp, Harris Yulin, Robert Pine, Timothy Carhart, Alan Dale, and Glenn Morshower), The Agency (with David Clennon, Daniel Benzali, Molly Hagan, and Leslie Silva), North Shore (with Tim Kelleher), General Hospital, Law & Order: LA, True Blood, Teen Wolf (with Doug Jones), Resurrection, How to Get Away with Murder (with Faran Tahir), Chasing Life (with Merrin Dungey and Steven Weber), Berlin Station (with Leland Orser, Michelle Forbes, and Mark Moses), and The Good Doctor.
She has also appeared in various short films in recent years.