Randall Park

Park was born to Korean immigrants in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in Castle Heights, Los Angeles. His mother was an accountant at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and his father owned a one-hour photo store. Park graduated from Hamilton High School's humanities magnet program. Park attended UCLA in the fall quarter of 1993. As a student, he co-founded "Lapu, the Coyote that Cares," the largest and longest-running on-campus Asian American theater company, now known as the LCC Theatre Company, in 1995. He credits his experiences with LCC for sparking his desire to pursue acting professionally and would go on to collaborate with many of its alumni. Their first performance was of Treehouse Bachelor Society, a full-length play Park had written, and it was performed at the Northwest Auditorium. Park was a student volunteer for UCLA's official charity, UCLA UniCamp, and went by the camp name "CareMoose." He graduated with a bachelor's degree in English, with a concentration in creative writing, and minor in Asian American studies from UCLA in 1997. He remained at UCLA, partly to continue acting with LCC, and later completed his master's degree in Asian American studies in 1999. After graduation, Park worked at the weekly newspaper New Times LA as a graphic/print designer for a few years. When he left the job, he considered pursuing architecture school but failed the pre-requisite courses and realized he did not want to attend any more schooling.