What Masi Oka From Hawaii Five-0 Is Doing Now
From 2010 to 2019, Masi Oka starred as Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Max Bergman on Peter M. Lenkov and Alex Kurtzman's reboot of Leonard Freeman's "Hawaii Five-O." The reboot of the Hawaii-based police procedural premiered in the fall of 2010, and ran for a full 10 seasons on CBS before airing its series finale in April 2020. As Bergman, Oka imbued one of the genre's more typically one-dimensional characters with a quirky charisma all his own, and fans were sorry to see him leave to pursue other interests in Season 7.
As Lenkov explained to Entertainment Weekly, it really came down to the fact that the actor had a lot on his plate. "He's producing a movie," he told the outlet, "He's spending a lot of time in Japan these days. He wants to produce more, and he's very entrepreneurial [...] he wants to pursue other interests, so it really just came down to that, and I held onto (his character) as long as I could." Oka, who is also an experienced visual effects and digital artist, did indeed go on to produce, and lent his voice to two different animated projects before signing on to star alongside some of Hollywood's biggest names in an upcoming film from director David Leitch.
In Spies in Disguise, Masi Oka went toe-to-toe with Will Smith
In 2019, the former "Heroes" and "Mozart in the Jungle" star voiced a comedically inept antagonist in Nick Bruno and Troy Quane's "Spies in Disguise." The animated feature follows a renowned spy named Lance Sterling (Will Smith) after he is turned into a pigeon, and he must rely on the tech savvy but awkward Walter (voiced by Tom Holland) to complete his mission.
In the film, Oka plays a physically imposing arms dealer named Katsu Kimura who answers to Lance's arch nemesis, a villainous terrorist named Killian, voiced by "Bloodline" star Ben Mendelsohn. Despite his intimidating physic and formidable criminal resume, Kimura is taken down by the film's true hero — science. When the tattooed arms dealer is rendered immobile and exposed to the spy team's truth serum, his and his associate's plans are foiled when he spills the proverbial beans on their evil plot.
"Spies in Disguise" earned a Best Animated Film nomination from the US Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, and the movie also starred Rachel Brosnahan ("The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel"), Tawny Newsome ("Space Force") and television and country music star Reba McEntire. Following his role in the film, Oka would go on to voice another animated character, this time in a galaxy far, far away.
Oka joined the greater Star Wars universe in 2021
In 2021, Oka lent his voice to Disney+'s "Star Wars: Visions," an animated anthology that, as Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy explained, would celebrate "the 'Star Wars' galaxy through the lens of the world's best anime creators [...] [bringing] ten fantastic visions from several of the leading Japanese anime studios, offering a fresh and diverse cultural perspective to 'Star Wars'" (via SciFi Radio).
Oka starred in Production IG's "The Ninth Jedi" as a young Jedi named Ethan who runs into a trap in his determined quest to revive the age-old order of the Jedi. In the episode, Ethan is betrayed by six of his cohorts who turn out to be Sith, and he and the force-sensitive human Lah Kara (Chinatsu Akasaki/ Kimiko Glenn) must fight their way through the surrounding enemy line. After Lah Kara helps Ethan defeat the Sith, she becomes known as "The Ninth Jedi," and resolves to help Ethan and their master Juro (Tetsuo Kanao/ Andrew Kishino) restore the defunct Jedi Order.
In addition to voicing some seriously memorable animated characters, Oka has had his hands full both behind the scenes and in front of the camera.
Despite a busy career as a producer, Oka hasn't left acting for good
Just as Lenkov told Entertainment Weekly, the star behind "Hawaii Five-O's" beloved M.E. did indeed leave the series to pursue a career producing. In 2017, Oka kicked-off his career in the field with director Adam Wingard's "Death Note," which he co-produced alongside Jason Hoffs, Ted Sarandos, Roy Lee, and Dan Lin. The film starred Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield ("Judas and the Black Messiah"), and was adapted from Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's popular manga series of the same name (via The Book Smugglers). In 2019 and 2021, Oka executive produced the game "Outer Wilds" and its follow-up, "Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye," before moving from film, to video game, to television with the upcoming action-adventure series "The Promised Land," which is currently in pre-production.
Oka will also produce the upcoming animated "Mega Man" film, and has been officially attached to three more upcoming projects, including Doug Liman's "Live Die Repeat and Repeat" (a proposed sequel to "Edge of Tomorrow") and Andy Muschietti's manga adaptation "Attack on Titan," as well as Taika Waititi's long-awaited live-action reimagining of "Akira" (via IMDb).
For those keeping track, that's a whopping eight different projects, but if you thought the star had moved behind the camera for good, you thought wrong. The former "Hawaii Five-O" actor will star alongside Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock in David Leitch's upcoming action thriller, "Bullet Train," currently in post-production.