Tamlyn Tomita

Tamlyn Naomi Tomita (born January 27, 1966) is a Japanese-American actress and singer. She made her screen debut as Kumiko in The Karate Kid Part II (1986) and reprised the character for the streaming series Cobra Kai (2021). She is also well known for her role as Waverly in The Joy Luck Club (1993). Additional films include Come See the Paradise (1990), Picture Bride (1994), Four Rooms (1995), Robot Stories (2003), The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and Gaijin 2: Love Me as I Am (2005).

Tomita also has played several recurring roles on television series, including 24, Glee, Teen Wolf and How to Get Away with Murder. She starred on the Epix drama series Berlin Station (2016), and in 2017 began starring in the ABC medical drama The Good Doctor. In 2020, she had a recurring role in Star Trek: Picard.

Early Life

Tamlyn Tomita, a first generation Japanese-American (issei), was born on a military base in Okinawa and grew up in Los Angeles. Her Japanese-American father was in an internment camp during World War II. He met her mother while stationed in Okinawa between the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Her mother was of half-Okinawan Japanese and half-Filipino descent, born in Manila and emigrated to Okinawa after World War II. Her father became an LAPD officer upon returning to Los Angeles.

Tomita graduated from Granada Hills High School and attended UCLA, where she studied history and planned to become a history teacher. While a junior at UCLA, she participated in Nisei Week, where she was crowned its 1984 queen. She and several other Japanese-American girls were asked by Helen Funai, the 1963 pageant queen, to audition for the role of Kumiko in The Karate Kid II. She promised her parents that she would finish college, and then explore acting.