Lam was born at South Wall Road in
Kowloon City, He graduated from
TVB's 15th Artist Training Class in 1988. For the next seven to eight years, he was no more than an extra in most
television productions. It wasn't until Lam's impersonation of
Jacky Cheung that he began to catch the attention of Hong Kong audiences. Lam was soon offered more supporting roles and the first TV series he starred in,
Time Before Time, was one of the most popular
serials of 1997. At that time, he has had the opportunity to appear in films as well, with small roles in
Gen-X Cops (1999) and
The Kid (1999). After leaving TVB in 2001, Lam became a contracted artiste under
Andy Lau's
Topman Global, and began to fully concentrate on his film career. Lam appeared in supporting roles in a number of Lau's films such as
Dance of a Dream (2001),
Infernal Affairs (2002),
Jiang Hu (2004),
Yesterday Once More (2004) and ''
Wait 'til You're Older'' (2005). Some of his other known film appearances include
Johnnie To's
Election film series (2005-2006),
Exiled (2006) and
Mad Detective (2007). In 2009, Lam made his debut as a producer for
Gallants, which won the
Hong Kong Film Award for Best Film as well as the
Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards for Best Film. Lam went on to producer the 2015 film,
Get Outta Here, which he also wrote the story for. In 2013, Lam played a subsidiary role in Lau's 2013 film,
Firestorm, which was a box office success, and subsequently led him to many leading film role offers. In 2017, Lam won the
Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor for his performance in as Kwai Ching-hung
Trivisa (2016), based on real life notorious Hong Kong mobster
Kwai Ping-hung. His performance also won him the
Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards for Best Actor and the Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild Award for Best Actor. On 6 August 2021, Lam received the Variety Star Asia Award at the 20th
New York Asian Film Festival. ==Filmography==