Why Julia From Dangerous Lies Looks So Familiar

In the new Netflix thriller Dangerous Lies, everybody has a hidden agenda, and nobody is quite who they claim to be. The flick stars Riverdale's Camila Mendes as Katie, a young woman who serves as the caretaker for a kindly old man named Leonard (Elliott Gould). The two share a special bond, and he even agrees to hire her husband, Adam (Jessie T. Usher), as a gardener, and to help the young couple out with their bills. When Leonard passes away and leaves his entire estate to Katie, however, a number of shady and mysterious parties begin to show undue interest in her inheritance.

Among these are a police detective with a nose for deception (Sasha Alexander, NCIS), a real estate agent who is intent on buying the property and who isn't inclined to take no for an answer (Cam Gigandet), and the deceased man's attorney, Julia, who seems a bit suspicious of Katie's good fortune. If the actress playing the shady lawyer looks a little bit familiar, well, there's probably a pretty good reason for that. Her name is Jamie Chung and, after getting her start on reality TV, she's carved out an interesting career for herself in television, feature films, and animation. Here's why Julia from Dangerous Lies looks so familiar.

Plenty of celebrities have gotten their big breaks on the venerable MTV series The Real World, which helped give birth to reality television and has run on various platforms nearly continuously since its debut all the way back in 1992. Its list of success stories includes the likes of comic artist and writer Judd Winnick, author and activist Kevin Powell, The Human Stain actress Jacinda Barrett, WWE wrestler Mike Mizanin, actor and TV personality Kyle Brandt, and Chung, who appeared on the show's 14th season, set in San Diego, in 2004.

Like many seasons of the reality series, Chung's was not without its share of controversy. Nearly a month's worth of footage was excised from the season due to a sexual assault accusation against a friend of one of The Real World's cast members, and although the assault was alleged to have taken place in the house, where cameras were shooting around the clock everywhere except the bathrooms, the San Diego District Attorney eventually declined to pursue the case due to a lack of evidence (via E! News). Also, during the filming of the season, cast member Robin Hibbard was arrested for starting a fight in a local nightclub (an incident which was, of course, caught on tape).

Despite the resulting bad publicity, however, Chung emerged from her Real World appearance scandal-free and ready to start building her acting résumé. As it happened, it would take virtually no time at all for the offers to start coming in.

Chung's first gig on a scripted series was a bit part (credited as "Flirting Girl") in a third-season episode of the Kristen Bell-fronted mystery series Veronica Mars in 2006. The very next year, the floodgates opened for the young actress. She landed a ten-episode stint as Cordy Han on the long-running daytime drama Days of Our Lives, and appeared in one-off guest roles on ER and CSI: NY. She also booked a small role as Ella in the TV movie Katrina, appeared in the first two episodes of a three-episode run on the ABC Family series Greek, and popped up in a bit part in the feature film I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. 

It wasn't a bad year, to be sure,  but in 2008, Chung broke out with her first lead role, on the ABC Family miniseries Samurai Girl. The miniseries, based on the YA novel series of the same name, saw Chung starring as Heaven Kogo, who was adopted by a powerful family after surviving a deadly plane crash as an infant. She grows up in luxury and privilege, but her world is turned upside down at 19 when her family is attacked during her wedding. Upon learning that the Yakuza are to blame, Kogo picks up a sword and begins the samurai training that will allow her to have her revenge.

Samurai Girl might not exactly have set the world on fire, but it was a high-profile enough vehicle for its star that casting directors began to take notice. Soon, Chung would start to field more  offers to appear in feature films, and those offers haven't stopped rolling in since.

Chung made her second appearance in a theatrical feature in 2009's Dragonball: Evolution, and while the film failed to please fans of the iconic manga from which it was adapted, it was a major supporting role for Chung, who portrayed Chi Chi, a martial arts master and the crush of Justin Chatwin's Goku. She also got to work with Shameless star Emmy Rossum, Ghostbusters' Ernie Hudson, and the legendary Chinese actor Chow Yun-fat.

Despite the adaptation tanking at the box office and being mercilessly trashed by critics, it gave Chung her biggest chunk of screen time to date, and the roles simply began to pour in for her after that point. She appeared as Claire in the horror flick Sorority Row in 2009, landed the lead role of Ginny in the comedy thriller Burning Palms in 2010, and starred as Amber in the Adam Sandler comedy Grown Ups that same year. The following year brought a supporting role in the insane Zack Snyder actioner Sucker Punch and an appearance as Lauren in the hit comedy The Hangover Part II, and 2012 saw Chung land her second lead, as the title character in the crime drama Eden. Also that year, she appeared as Kerstin in the Rob Lowe drama Knife Fight, as Nima in David Koepp's thriller Premium Rush, and as Lady Silk in The Man with the Iron Fists, the directorial debut of Wu-Tang Clan producer RZA.

More recently, Chung starred in the lead role of Ruby in Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong (which she also produced), popped up as Cassandra in the 2017 Zoe Lister-Jones dramedy Band Aid, and appeared as Carly in the 2018 indie drama 1985. 

Of course, even if you didn't recognize Chung's face, the chances are pretty decent that you've heard her distinctive voice before. The actress has lent her voice acting chops to a number of video games, beginning with the role of Commander Takara Sato in the 2008 strategy game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. She also performed the role of Aimi Yoshida in 2011's X-Men: Destiny, appeared as Ana Bray in the "Warmind" DLC for 2017's mega-smash Destiny 2, and, in 2019, voiced a role near and dear to her heart for the Disney mashup Kingdom Hearts III: That of Gogo Tamago, the character she brought to life for the 2014 animated hit film Big Hero 6.

Chung would also reprise that role for Big Hero 6: The Series (which airs on the Disney Channel and Disney XD) and, more recently, she's lent her voice talents to the role of Rose Trefgarne in Sherwood, the animated sci-fi update of the Robin Hood legend from YouTube Premium.

In addition to the crazy amount of feature and voice work that has been coming Chung's way in recent years, she's also found time to star on a few of the most entertaining genre series of recent years. Between 2012 and 2016, she popped up in the role of Mulan on a dozen episodes of ABC's fairytale deconstruction, Once Upon a Time, and brought her talents to the Fox network's Gotham during that series' season 3 "Mad City" arc. More recently, Chung starred on The Gifted, a Fox series produced in association with Marvel Television and tangentially related to the Fox-produced X-Men movies. In it, Chung portrayed Clarice Fong, aka Blink, a mutant with the power of teleportation. While the series was well-received, it was an unfortunate casualty of Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox's television and film assets, and was canceled in 2019 after two seasons, roughly a month after the deal closed.

An actress of Chung's talent, though, is never out of work for too long. Soon, you'll be able to catch her as Ji-Ah, a nursing student with dark secrets, on Lovecraft Country, the HBO original series that's a co-production of J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot and Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw production houses (via HBO). The series is expected to premiere later this year. Also on tap is a role in The Misfits, a heist flick from veteran action director Renny Harlin co-starring Pierce Brosnan, Tim Roth, and Nick Cannon. The flick is also set to debut in late 2020, although no official release date has been set.

The high-profile parts certainly seem to be stacking up for Jamie Chung, lately, and it's no wonder, as she's one of the hardest-working women in Hollywood. We wouldn't be too surprised to see her elbowing her way onto Tinseltown's A-list very soon, and we can't wait to see what she does next.