Education
At 18, Shinkoda moved to Toronto to stay with relatives, but only stayed a year, leaving to attend the University of Western Ontario to pursue a Civil Engineering degree. He began spending summers in Los Angeles and eventually made the transition to study Post Production for Film and Television at University of California, Los Los Angeles He then went on to work as an assistant editor on such films as Romeo Must Die, Rat Race, Freddie Got Fingered and Saving Silverman, although he never finished any of the editing projects as acting assignments always arose to supersede them. Shinkoda once studied acting at the East-West Players Conservatory, and earned a lead role in the Northwest Asian American Theater’s production of Exit the Dragon by Eric Michael Zee, produced by Ming-Na Wen.
Career
Shinkoda has also appeared as recurring character Nobu on Marvel"s Daredevil, which is distributed via Netflix. Shinkoda has also starred as in films such as War (as Harbor Yanagawa Shatei), I, Robot (as Detective Chinese), and Paycheck as well as television shows such as Hawaii Five-0 (as Alan Kim), Sanctuary (as Andy Fetz), Dark Angel (as Albino X), Stargate SG-1, Supernatural, The L Word (as Bryan Karikawa), Kingdom Hospital, Andromeda (as Burke), Cold Squad, Masked Rider and the original Mighty Morphin" Power Rangers (in both series as Ferrian). Shinkoda was born and raised in Montreal.
Though family and friends encouraged him to be practical and pursue a career in engineering or medicine, he was focused on an entertainment career from a young age.
The audition led nowhere at the time, leaving Shinkoda to focus on sports, excelling at hockey, skiing, football, baseball, soccer and judo. He also studied classical piano and was identified as one of the top young pianists in Canada by the time he was 13 years old.
He also has a brother named Dean.
