Childhood & Early Life
Hawick Lau was born on 13th October 1974 in Hong Kong. Having born to an actor father, it was quite natural for him to get fascinated with the entertainment world. While he was growing up, Hong Kong cinema was going through a great phase and this sowed the seed of acting dreams within him.
While his father Lau Dan worked in films and TV, Hawick carefully observed him and said in later interviews that he has never taken any professional training in acting and that everything he has learned was from the tips given by his father.
But there also came a time when Hawick lost his interest in the show-business. Suffering from low self-esteem, he thought he wasn’t fit to be an actor. Although he did some part-time theatre in high school, once he graduated, he left Hong Kong to pursue higher studies.
He landed in Canada and started studying architecture at the Ryerson University in Ontario. But very quickly he realised that architecture wasn’t something that he was interested in and hence moved back to Hong Kong to pursue a career in acting.
After months of initial struggle, his father came to his aid and assured him a role in his upcoming sitcom ‘A Kindred Spirit’.
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Career
Hawick prepared himself for a career in acting and ‘The Kindred Spirit’ had him playing a minor role. Not fretting over the insignificance of his role, he perfectly exhibited his skills as an actor and got the attention of the producers. The sitcom, which turned out to be a major hit, was being watched by a record number of viewers and it handed Hawick a great beginning.
Also an aspiring singer, he joined hands with Sony Music the same year, as the music company was looking to increase the number of its singers. Hawick launched two back-to-back albums, one in Mandarin and another in Cantonese. Both the albums tanked and it turned out that he wasn’t really blessed when it came to making music. He decided to bury his musical dreams for good and concentrated solely on his acting career.
‘The Kindred Spirit’ ran for 4 years, and this was a massive success in the industry where series wouldn’t run for more than 20 episodes at a stretch. While the series was still being aired, Hawick played minor roles in ‘Mystery Files’ and ‘Untraceable EvidenceII’. These stints further made him a popular supporting actor within the industry and by the year 2000 he was a popular actor in the Hong Kong industry.
In 2000, he played a major role in the drama ‘Aiming High’, in which his presence was noticed and it was followed by a supporting role in the epic thriller ‘At the Threshold of an Era’. He followed it up with a unique historical sitcom ‘Virtues of Harmony’ and also appeared later in its sequel, which was set in the modern era. While Hawick’s performances were highly appreciated, he was still far from being considered a major star.
2005 saw the first leading role of his career through ‘My Family’, a comedy drama in which he played the role of a singer. The series was a hit among the audience and Hawick received the honour of becoming one of TVB’s 5 Fresh Tigers, a group of promising actors who are supported by the network in order to achieve success.
Hawick then appeared in ‘Hard Fate’ and ‘Shades of Truth’ and both the series were successful, making Hawick’s collaboration with TVB beneficial for both the parties. In mid-2005, Hawick decided to leave Hong Kong to explore further opportunities in other territories.
He explored opportunities in Mainland China, Singapore and Taiwan and given the fact that his talent was already known there, he didn’t have trouble in getting some opportunities as soon as he started out.
In 2007, he bagged a role in the Chinese series ‘Qing Hui Merchants’, a period Wuxia drama, which was followed by the Taiwanese drama ‘Letter 1949’. In order to expand his mainstream Chinese audience, he worked on his Mandarin language and quickly became accustomed to it.
2008 drama series ‘Royal Embroidery Workshop’ was the project which resonated with the Chinese audience more than any other of his works and this resulted in a massive fan base for him in the mainland China. This new found fame was further sealed when he won the Audience’s Most Favorite Actor Award at the Annual Fujian TV Station awards.
For ‘Niang Qi’, a republic drama, Hawick won Best Actor awards at many events and in 2011 he portrayed a character with negative shades in ‘Sealed With a Kiss’. His character in the series was reminiscent of Christian Grey from the famous ‘50 Shades of Grey’ and Hawick received further prominence.
2012 saw the romantic comedy film ‘Holding Love’, in which he was paired opposite a highly successful Chinese actress, Yang Mi. The film went on to become a success and by the end of its box office run, it was one of the highest grossing films of the year.
In the next year, Hawick decided to upgrade his position in the industry and established his personal studio and produced the series ‘A Clear Midsummer Night’, which turned out to be a great success and became the first drama of the year to cross 100 Million views within the first few months.
In 2014, he appeared in the drama ‘The Wife’s Secret’, and it received high ratings. This success was followed by ‘Lady & Liar’, a drama which broke all the previous records to become the most viewed online republic era drama.
Hawick continued his success streak with roles in series like ‘The Cage of Love’ and ‘Chronicle of Life’.
