Chris Chung

Christopher Patrick Chung was born on 13 July 1988 to an Irish mother from Limerick and a Malaysian Chinese father. His parents met at a party while studying in London in the 1970s. Chung grew up in Mornington and Mount Eliza, suburbs of Melbourne located on the Mornington Peninsula.

He attended Padua College, graduating in 2006. At his school, there were only a handful of children of Chinese heritage.

Chung was part of the local amateur dramatic group, auditioned for musical competitions including Australian Idol and The X Factor, and attended workshops at St Martin's Youth Theatre. Through St. Martin’s, he was invited to the Ward Acting Studio in New York for a six-month intensive course. At the time, he was working in retail after having dropped out of college.

Chung also completed an acting course in Philadelphia, before moving to London, UK in 2012.

In 2011, Chung appeared in one episode of the Australian soap opera Neighbours. Six months after moving to London, he was cast in his first UK television role as Archie Wong in BBC’s Waterloo Road. He also performed on stage, playing Kurt in Heathers: The Musical at West End theatre and Paris in Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare’s Globe.

After theatres closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chung briefly contemplated taking a break from acting. Shortly after, he was cast in his breakout role as Roddy Ho in the British spy drama series Slow Horses on Apple TV+ (2022–present).

In 2024, Chung starred in Steve McQueen's wartime drama film Blitz. In 2025, he was cast as Cassio in Doctor Who season 2, with Ncuti Gatwa playing the doctor.

He plays leading role Harry Beecham, opposite Philippa Northeast's Sybylla, in the Netflix historical drama series My Brilliant Career (2026), based on Miles Franklin's 1901 novel of the same name. Filmed in South Australia, the series premiered on 13 August 2026. Beecham's role was not written as a Chinese Australian, but the series creator, Liz Doran, wanted to explore the complex history of early Chinese settlers in Australia.

For his role in Slow Horses, Chung was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in the 2025 BAFTAs, and became the third male actor of East Asian descent to be nominated.

Chung met Scottish actress Frances Mayli McCann in 2014 while auditioning for a Miss Saigon remake. The couple got engaged in 2016 and were married—first in a traditional Chinese ceremony in Melbourne in 2020, and then in a western-style wedding in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021. They live in London.

Endorsements and other ventures:

Chung works as a personal trainer at the Fred’s Gym in North Hampstead, London. In an interview with The Observer, he said that he’s “hesitant to give up the profession because it keeps him grounded.”