François Chau

François Chau was born in Phnom Penh in 1959 and has worked in American film and television since the 1980s, largely in parts that are small, precise and completely unmistakable. His earliest credits are the voice of Quick Kick in G.I. Joe. Then, in 1991, he played Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, which put him inside one of the decade's most recognisable pieces of costume.

The role that made him famous with a specific audience is Dr. Pierre Chang on Lost, the scientist presenting the Dharma Initiative orientation films. It is a peculiar acting problem: he has to deliver dense, absurd exposition with the flat institutional sincerity of an actual training video, keeping a straight face while the audience laughs and then, later, takes it seriously. He holds the tone so completely that those videos became a touchstone for the show's audience.

He did something similar with Jules-Pierre Mao in The Expanse, a billionaire whose menace is entirely in how politely he speaks, and again as Feng Zhao in The Penguin. Elsewhere the credits are a tour of four decades of studio work: Lethal Weapon 4, Rapid Fire, City of Industry, Beverly Hills Ninja, Rescue Dawn, 21 & Over, Birds of Prey, plus voice roles in Raya and the Last Dragon and Ultraman: Rising. It is the sort of filmography that gets described as jobbing, which undersells how often he is the most memorable thing in a scene.