Japanese-American actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, famous for his role as Shang Tsung in the movie Mortal Kombat but also for roles in other successful movies where he usually played a samurai, was baptised Christian Orthodox.
According to Ekklisia Online, he decided to drop his samurai sword and take up the Cross. He was even baptised an Orthodox according to the doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat.
The baptism was performed by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk and the actor was named Panteleimon.
“You cannot just grasp the essence of the Russian Orthodox… When I first came to Russia I had very little time to get into the character,” Tagawa said in an interview to Kinopoisk.ru in 2013.
“So I visited a number of Russian cathedrals in Yaroslavl and Rostov,” the actor continued.
“Simply being inside had a very powerful effect on me,” he added.