Fundraising For and About Animals
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As an actor, he has over 80 credits in films and TV programs, radio dramas and on stage. Feature films include “Remember”, “Orphan” and “Mission to Mars”. He was a series regular on CBC’s Gemini-winning comedy series “An American in Canada” and a recurring character on CBC’s famed comedy “Little Mosque on the Prairie” as well as a recurring character on Omni’s night time soap, “Metropia.” Stage appearances include “Indian Ink” (CanStage/National Arts Centre), “Bhopal” (Cahoots Theatre), “Tideline” (Factory Theatre), “The Post Office” (Pleiades Theatre) and the Canadian premiere of the award-winning British play, “The Container” at the Summerworks Theatre Festival in Toronto. He recurred on the first season of the acclaimed TV series, “The Girlfriend Experience”,and currently recurs in the hit TV comedy “Kim’s Convenience”. He recently starred in the world premiere of award-winning playwright Anusree Roy’s play, “Little Pretty and the Exceptional”, which garnered him a Dora Award nomination for Outstanding Performance - Male.
Screenwriting credits include the CBC TV movie, “Best of Both Worlds” which he also starred in and several TV series, including the famed Muppet series “Fraggle Rock”, as well as other series as wide ranging as the crime drama “Blue Murder” to the children’s show “Blobheads”. His documentary credits include co-writing the IMAX film “Lost Worlds: Life in the Balance” narrated by Harrison Ford. He won a Writers Guild of Canada award for his animated scripts for the NFB’s Talespinners’ collection. He won the first York Trillium Award for Most Promising Writer - Television. He has received two Gemini nominations and four Writers Guild of Canada award nominations for screenwriting. His radio drama “Entry Denied” was Canada’s entry in the WorldPlay festival and was broadcast worldwide. His first stage play, “Entitlement” premiered at the Summerworks Theatre Festival in Toronto to strong notices. He most recently wrote for and acted in “The Postman” a play with music about Toronto’s first black postman, which premiered as part of the Panamania arts festival for the Pan Am Games in Toronto.
He won a Governor-General’s medal for the province of Saskatchewan upon graduating high school in Saskatoon and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota in theatre arts. He was the first graduate from Canada’s first MFA program in film at York University and the first minority writer-director graduate of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre’s feature film programme where his short thesis film “Kumar and Mr. Jones” was the first CFC film nominated for a Genie and went on to won 3 international awards. His other short drama and comic films have screened at festivals worldwide. His films for children have been nominated for several awards including a Gemini Award and he is the director and writer of several innovative videos for corporate clients like Pfizer US, Novo Nordisk, the OSSTF, and TRIEC.
He has been on the faculty of Humber College’s Acting for Film and Television program, Centennial College's film program, the Toronto Film School and will join the faculty of George Brown College’s new Acting for Media program. He has also been invited to give seminars and workshops on acting and screenwriting, including running the first three years of the WGC-Bell Media Diverse Screenwriting program. He is a governor representing the WGC on the board of AFBS, the insurance and pension plan for the WGC and ACTRA and he is on the board of the AFC, Canada’s charity that assists arts and entertainment workers in crisis.
He is listed in Who’s Who in Canada, wikipedia.org and imdb.com. An avid golfer, he also holds black belts in karate and kobudo and was the first Canadian to grade in his style of kobodu in Japan.
