Hiro Kanagawa is a Vancouver-based writer and actor. His full-length plays The Tiger of Malaya and The Patron Saint of Stanley Park have been performed across Canada as have many of his shorter works. Hiro received the 2017 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Drama for his play, Indian Arm, a contemporary Canadian re-imagining of Ibsen’s Little Eyolf. His most recent play, a stage adaptation of Mark Sakamoto’s best-selling memoir, Forgiveness, premiered in January 2023 in an Arts Club Theatre / Theatre Calgary co-production directed by acclaimed director Stafford Arima. Forgiveness went on to receive both a Betty Mitchell Award and Calgary Theatre Critics’ Award for Outstanding New Script and was a 2023 Governor-General’s Literary Award finalist before making its Eastern Canada debut at the 2025 Stratford Festival.
For the screen, Hiro is best known for his numerous recurring and guest starring roles on hit television and streaming series such as Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Trek: Discovery, Altered Carbon, The Man in the High Castle, iZombie, The X-Files and many others. Behind the camera he was story editor on several critically-acclaimed Canadian television series: Da Vinci’s Inquest, Da Vinci’s City Hall, Intelligence and Blackstone as well as the upcoming feature film Dusk & Dawn. Hiro’s own J-horror-inspired screenplay Mizuko is currently under development with Bright Light Pictures and Telefilm Canada.
