Celebrity Travel: Go away with Raymond Lee
For “Quantum Leap” star Raymond Lee, acting came about in a circuitous way. “I dropped out of high school, I landed at a community college and I haphazardly took an acting course and I liked it,” Lee said in a Zoom interview from his Los Angeles home. “Then I graduated from a community college, went to a state university and I somehow managed to get a theater degree. And here I am passing as a doctor.” But throughout all the lean years, he had the support of his mother – who had been an actress in South Korea. A rarity for Asian American talent, Lee has top billing on NBC’s popular sci-fi series. He stays in touch with fans on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/raymomomo).
Q: What was your childhood like?
A: I was born in Flushing, Queens, and my mom was working at a nail shop and raised me as a single parent. I’m an only child. It’s kind of tough in New York, so she moved to California to raise me with her best friend.
Q: Growing up as a visible minority, do you feel you grew up in inclusive environments?
A: Yes. It's always interesting to me the weight that [some Asian Americans] carry around from not having grown up with people who look like them. I was fortunate enough to grow up in Koreatown and Glendale, where our star quarterback was Asian and the smartest three students in our class were Asian.
Q: Were you one of them?
A: No. [Laughs] Some of our best singers in our a capella choir were Asian. I had great examples growing up. I was also raised in a church where I thought everyone who was older than me were the coolest people in the world. So I was lucky to have very positive role models. And I know that's not the same story for some of my other friends who grew up in different parts of America.
Q: What do you miss about not living in New York anymore?
A: New York is unrivaled – the energy that's out there. The feeling that you get when you end a show and you're walking 11 blocks back to wherever you're staying, you can grab a slice, and the city’s bustling and you feel alive. You can’t replicate that … except maybe in [England’s] West End.
Q: L.A. has the weather advantage over New York or Chicago though, right?
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