Printable Biography of Tia Carrere

Exotic (Chinese/Spanish/Filipino), sultry actress who gained national prominence as Cassandra, the guitar-playing, kick-boxing "babe" in the 1992 mega-hit, "Wayne's World". Carrere began working as a model and commercial actress which led to her being cast in a number of guest spots on such series as "The A-Team" and "MacGyver". She made her feature debut in the B-horror film, "Zombie Terror" (1987). Much of Carrere's early film work consisted of playing "the girl" in such action fodder as "Showdown in Little Tokyo" (1991) and "Fatal Mission" (1990). Carrere was able to display her comic and musical abilities in "Wayne's World", (for which she sang two songs), and was given a chance to show a more cerebral side when cast as Jingo Asakuma, a half-Japanese, half-black computer expert in Philip Kaufman's thriller "Rising Sun" (1993).


Carrere's career trajectory continued on course with appearances in "Wayne's World 2" (1993) and director James Cameron's spy action thriller "True Lies" (1994), in which she played the villainous Juno Skinner opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. In 1999 she took the lead role in the syndicated action-adventure television series "Relic Hunter," playing globe-hunting, black-belted archeology professor Syndey Fox. The series aired internationally until 2002, the same year Carrere's career got a shot in the arm with a role that did not trade on her exotic good looks; instead, her smooth voice breathed life into Lilo's struggling older sister Nani in Disney's Hawaiian-themed animated feature film "Lilo & Stitch."

She recently married photojournalist Simon Wakelin and gave birth to daughter Bianca.