Jessika Van is an American actress, singer-songwriter, pianist and dancer. Van is most known for playing "Becca," the ringleader of the Asians or the Asian mafia in Season 2 and Season 3 of MTV's Awkward.[1][2][3] She also played Kim, a Hong Kong Police Officer and sister of Detective Lee in the Rush Hour television series.[4] She has also starred as the antagonist "Li Xue" in the 2019 12-episode Chinese series,Yolk Man (蛋黄人).
Career
Van starred as Grace Park opposite Justin Chon (who plays love interest Sid Park) in Benson Lee's film Seoul Searching, which premiered as an official selection of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.[5] She also played the role of the Sports Bar Waitress in the film The Gambler (2014) in a scene opposite both John Goodman and Mark Wahlberg where she remarks to Wahlberg not to pin the choice of beer on her; the film was directed by Rupert Wyatt and written by Oscar-award-winning screenwriter William Monahan. Van also starred as Annie in Junya Sakino's Sake-Bomb (2013) (also written by Jeff Mizushima) which premiered at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival.[6][7] She also starred in Byron Q's film Bang Bang (2011),[8] which won a Special Jury Award for Best First Feature, Narrative, at the 2011 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.[9] She also starred as Mia Ho in Danny Roth's feature comedy Foreign Exchange (2008).
Van played the reoccurring character "Koa Lin" on CW's The Messengers. Van also played the reoccurring character "Becca", the ringleader of the Asians, and the primary antagonist to Ming Huang (Jessica Lu) on MTV's Awkward. Van has also appeared on other TV shows such as playing a Goth character named "Sunshine" on Disney's A.N.T. Farm, playing "Stacey Tan" in the 2009 Without A Trace episode "Devotion," opposite David Huynh, and playing the younger Nikki Sun (Nikki Sun '89) on an episode of Cold Case, "Triple Threat" (2008).
Van had also been cast as Kim, the Hong Kong Police Officer that is also the younger sister of Detective Lee (played by Jon Foo) in the Rush Hour television series based on the Rush Hour series of films.[10]
She has also provided the voice of "Akira" on Uncle Grandpa on Cartoon Network. She was also a voice actor for multiple kickball characters in an episode of the animated television series The Boondocks.[11]
Van also appeared as "The Star" in Megan Lee's Music Video for Destiny, directed by Timothy Tau, as "Babe" in a comedy sketch YouTube video by The Fung Brothers about Jeremy Lin entitled "The Jeremy Lin Effect 2 (Linsanity)" also directed by Timothy Tau. She also appears as Casey in the web series It! People, Yuri in The Real Housewives of Horror, and as Carly in the web series Faulty Premise Life. She has also appeared in various videos by The Fung Brothers.
She also co-stars as the antagonist "Li Xue" in the 2019 Chinese TV series 蛋黄人/Yolk Man in 2019.
Van also played the role of Anna in the Chris Blake quarantine comedy, Distancing Socially filmed remotely at the height of the pandemic using the iPhone 11. The film was acquired and released by Cinedigm in October 2021.[17]
In 2022, Van starred as Harper in the crime-comedy film Rattled and as Jessica in the film Hollywood Christmas.
