Actor. Producer. Visionary.
Mike Dara is a Filipino-Laotian Canadian actor born and raised in Toronto, Canada. He was born to his Filipino mother Remedios, a nurse, and Laos father Vong, who immigrated to Toronto in the 80s to become a musician.
Working as a barber out of Toronto, Mike started his performance career in music when he met with engineers from neighboring recording studios. This later led Mike to connect with Nevon Sinclair, a Grammy nominated songwriter and vocal coach. Mike began performing in small venues across the city, gaining a local following.
A few years later, he felt like he was starting to hit a ceiling with his music. Mike began thinking about different outlets to express his creativity. He attended a couple of acting classes in a studio downtown Toronto and fell in love with the craft, switching his focus to building this up as his career. After winning the top spot in a national acting conference, Mike signed with an agent and quickly ascended to success. Shortly after, he booked his first major role as the quirky rapping vampire, Count Rapula, on FX's "What We Do In The Shadows"(2019).
Mike has since worked on projects such as Disney's "World's Best" (2023), "Hudson & Rex"(2021), and "A Most Dangerous Game"(2020) guest starring opposite Liam Hemsworth.
In 2021 Mike received awards for "Best Supporting Actor" and "Best Short Film" for his short film titled "Aces" from the Vancouver International Film Awards. The film also received an award for "Best Editing".
In 2023 Mike starred as leading man in a short film "Josephine" which won awards such as "Best Film", "Audience Choice" and "Best Acting Ensemble" at the 48 Hour Film Festival. This achievement lead Mike and the rest of the cast and crew members to travel to Lisbon, Portugal to have "Josephine" entered in "The 48 Hour Film Project Filmapalooza" in 2024, scoring Mike and his cast and crew to receive "Audience Choice" award.