Christina Chong

The Weight of a Galactic Surname

Christina Chong grew up around the stoves of a takeaway restaurant in Harpenden. Her father, who was from Hong Kong, ran the family business while she spent her afternoons focused on classical ballet.

But an untimely injury closed the door on dance. So she decided to study musical theater at the Italia Conti Academy in London and ended up performing in the musical Aida in Germany for an entire season.

The reality of casting in London was harsh.

For years she took on tiny roles in British series to pay the bills. In 2011 she appeared in an episode of Doctor Who as Lorna Bucket, and that gave her visibility with casting directors at the public broadcaster.

In 2014 she joined the cast of 24: Live Another Day alongside Kiefer Sutherland. It was a fast-paced production shot on the streets of the British capital that required her to learn weapons-handling techniques in record time.

That same year, she worked on the second season of Line of Duty. Playing Detective Nicola Rogerson allowed her to explore a dry register that she would later apply to big-budget science fiction.

She managed to shoot her scenes for Star Wars Episode VII in 2015, but the final edit of J.J. Abrams cut her appearance entirely.

Toronto and the Final Frontier

And then came space.

Her casting for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in 2022 permanently changed the course of her career. She plays La'an Noonien-Singh, a character with a genetic link to the franchise's most famous villain.

Before filming each action scene, she prefers to rehearse the choreography on her own to avoid accidents. The role is physically demanding because her character leads nearly all of the security missions on the Enterprise.

Shooting a ten-episode season requires six months of residency in Canada, far from her home in the UK. In 2024, the series confirmed its renewal for a fourth season even before airing the episodes of the third.

Chong didn't just sit around waiting for calls from her agent between seasons.

In 2023 she released her first music project, Twin Flames, on an independent label. She wrote the songs during breaks from filming in Toronto as a way to cope with the personal isolation that comes with working abroad.

Because the industry is sometimes too slow for her personal ambitions, she prefers to create her own content.

Producing this album was a fully self-managed process, with her overseeing everything from the sound mixing to distribution on digital platforms.

The budget per episode of her main series exceeds seven million dollars.