Lee made his acting debut in 1989 in the television series
Gideon Oliver. He had a supporting role in the film
Ice Princess (2005) playing Tiffany's father. Lee appeared in the horror film
P2 and the thriller
The Echo. In 2006, he took the role of Jung Park in the video game
Rainbow Six: Vegas and its 2008 sequel
Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. Lee was part of the main cast of the
Global nightly improvised soap opera
Train 48 in the role of Randy Ko for the entire run of the series from 2003 to 2005. He played the role of Appa on stage in several Toronto productions of ''Kim's Convenience
and on a national tour with the Soulpepper theatre company, as well as at an Off Broadway staging of the play. In 2016, Lee played Zhang Lin in the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre/Canadian Stage production of Chimerica. On January 11, 2017, he guest starred on an episode of This Hour Has 22 Minutes''. Lee has been nominated twice for the
Dora Mavor Moore Award for
Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Principal Role, Large Theatre, for
The Monster Under the Bed in 2010 and ''Kim's Convenience
in 2012. In the 5th, 6th, and 9th Canadian Screen Awards, he won the Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his portrayal of Appa in the Kim's Convenience
television series. Lee was selected to host the fourth season of the reality competition show Canada's Smartest Person, entitled Canada's Smartest Person Junior'' and featuring children as contestants. Lee is also a playwright. His play
Dangling premiered N8at Toronto's fu-GEN theatre festival in 2010. In 2020, he appeared as
New Republic X-wing pilot Captain Carson Teva in
The Mandalorian. He reprised the role in
The Book of Boba Fett episode "
Chapter 5: Return of the Mandalorian". In 2021, Lee appeared as a panelist on
Canada Reads, championing
Natalie Zina Walschots's novel
Hench. In the same year, Lee's five seasons on ''Kim's Convenience'' came to an abrupt end when the two show runners left the project. In 2022, he was announced as the host of
Fandemonium, a factual series which will profile the internal cultures of various pop culture
fandoms. He also appeared on the 2022 revival of
The Kids in the Hall. In 2023, he returned as Carson Teva in
The Mandalorian Season 3 episodes
The Pirate and
The Return. He also appears in
Ahsoka as Captain Carson Teva. In 2024, he played
Uncle Iroh in the
Netflix live action adaptation of
Avatar: The Last Airbender. On March 6, 2024, Netflix announced that the series was renewed for two additional seasons after garnering 21.2 million views in its first four days. He also plays a new main character, Inspector Albert Choi, the new head of Station House No 4, in the eighteenth season of the
CBC mystery series
Murdoch Mysteries.
Honours In 2023, Lee received the National Arts Centre Award at the
Governor General's Performing Arts Awards. ==Filmography==