Mayko Nguyen

Mayko Nguyen was born in Vancouver in 1980. Her first real experience on a professional film set came in 2004 with the movie Going the Distance. It wasn't a role that changed film history, but it helped pay the early bills in a Canadian industry that rarely gives anything away.

But her recognition in Toronto's industry came thanks to science fiction. Between 2004 and 2008, she was part of the main cast of ReGenesis. There she played Mayko Tran (a character who happened to share her first name) and learned to handle technical dialogue full of scientific terms that were hard to memorize.

That gave her the necessary foundation.

During those years, she took on minor projects such as The Last Sect in 2006. In Canadian television, if you don't work steadily, you drop off the radar of casting directors. So Nguyen landed one guest role after another in series such as Rookie Blue or Cracked, without chasing the media buzz of the big stars.

The Political Coldness of the Seven Systems

In 2015, she got the chance to play Delle Seyah Kendry in the cult series Killjoys. It was a supporting role that grew organically thanks to her restrained performance. She kept this role for five seasons until the story ended in 2019.

Nguyen wasn't chasing the easy fame of the red carpets in Los Angeles. She preferred to stay in her home country and work on locally rooted productions with solid international distribution. In 2016, she shot the first season of Slasher, where she sustained narrative tension in a pure horror setting.

And then the dog showed up.

Newfoundland Refuge

In 2019, she accepted the role of chief forensic officer Sarah Truong in Hudson & Rex. The show was filmed entirely in St. John's, Newfoundland, and has performed very well in European markets, including Spain. By 2022, the series was already a key international sales asset for the broadcaster Citytv.

Before each season begins, Nguyen spends months on Canada's east coast. Filming Hudson & Rex is demanding because of the region's extreme weather. In 2023, the production reached one hundred episodes aired and secured its continuation for the next cycle.

Beyond police procedurals, she also explored other genres. In 2022, she appeared in the miniseries The Night Logan Woke Up under the direction of Xavier Dolan. Originally shot in French, it marked a complete change of pace from her work in more mainstream television.

Her bet on auteur cinema paid off.

Nguyen balances her television work with brief appearances in short films and independent movies. In 2024, the filming schedule for her main series took up more than seven months of her work calendar. The production contract for Hudson & Rex covering its sixth season included a temporary exclusivity clause that limited her appearances in other projects during that year.