Haing Somnang Ngor (Khmer: ហាំង សំណាង ង៉ោ; Chinese: 吳漢潤; pinyin: Wú Hànrùn; March 22, 1940 – February 25, 1996) was a Cambodian American gynecologist, obstetrician, actor and author. He is best remembered for winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1985 for his debut performance in the film The Killing Fields (1984), in which he portrayed Cambodian journalist and refugee Dith Pran. He was murdered in a robbery outside his home in Los Angeles in 1996. Ngor is the only actor of Asian descent to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He survived three terms in Cambodian prison camps, using his medical knowledge to keep himself alive by eating beetles, termites, and scorpions; he eventually crawled between Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese lines to safety in a Red Cross refugee camp. His mother was Khmer and his father was of Chinese Teochew descent. Ngor and Harold Russell are the only two non-professional actors to win an Academy Award in an acting category. Ngor continued acting for the rest of his life, most notably in My Life (1993), portraying spiritual healer Mr. Ho opposite Michael Keaton and Nicole Kidman. Born in Samrong Young (in 1940, French Indochina), Bati district, now Takeo province, Cambodia, Ngor trained as a surgeon and gynecologist. He was practicing in the capital, Phnom Penh, in 1975 when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge seized control of the country and proclaimed it Democratic Kampuchea. He was compelled to conceal his education, medical skills, and even the fact that he wore glasses to avoid the new regime's intense hostility to intellectuals and professionals. He was expelled from Phnom Penh along with the bulk of its two million inhabitants as part of the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero" social experiment and imprisoned in a concentration camp along with his wife, My-Huoy, who subsequently died giving birth. Although a gynecologist, he was unable to treat his wife, who required a Caesarean section, because he would have been exposed, and both he and his wife (as well as the child) would very probably have been killed. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Ngor worked as a doctor in a refugee camp in Thailand and left with his niece for the United States on August 30, 1980. In America, Ngor was unable to resume his medical practice, and he did not remarry. In 1988, he wrote Haing Ngor: A Cambodian Odyssey, describing his life under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In the second edition of Survival in the Killing Fields, Roger Warner, Ngor's co-author, adds an epilogue telling the story of Ngor's life after winning the Academy Award. The Dr. Haing S. Ngor Foundation was founded in his honor in 1997 to assist in raising funds for Cambodian aid. As part of his humanitarian efforts, Ngor built an elementary school and operated a small sawmill that provided jobs and an income for local families.^[7] Ngor's niece, Sophia Ngor Demetri, who testified at the trial of his murderers and with whom he arrived in the U.S., is the current president of the Foundation. Ngor, despite having no previous acting experience, was cast as Dith Pran in The Killing Fields (1984), a role for which he won (among many honors) the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, becoming the first (and only) Asian to win Best Supporting Actor in debut performance,^[9] the second Asian actor to ever win an Oscar, and one of two amateur actors to win an Oscar following Harold Russell. Ngor was not initially interested in the role of Dith Pran, but interviews with the filmmakers changed his mind, as he recalled that he promised his late wife to tell Cambodia's story to the world. After appearing in The Killing Fields he told People magazine, "I wanted to show the world how deep starvation is in Cambodia, how many people die under communist regime. My heart is satisfied. I have done something perfect." Ngor went on to appear in various other onscreen projects, most memorably in the Vanishing Son miniseries and Oliver Stone's Heaven & Earth (1993). He also appeared in the Hong Kong film Eastern Condors (1987), which was directed by and starred Sammo Hung. Ngor appeared in a supporting role in the 1989 Vietnam War drama The Iron Triangle and guest-starred in a two-episode storyline on the acclaimed series China Beach (episodes "How to Stay Alive in Vietnam 1 & 2"^[12]) as a wounded Cambodian POW who befriends Colleen McMurphy while under her care. Ngor guest-starred in an episode of Miami Vice called "The Savage / Duty and Honor". Next to The Killing Fields, Ngor's most prominent feature film role was in My Life (1993), the directorial debut of Academy Award-winning screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin. Ngor portrayed a spiritual healer, Mr. Ho, who provides guidance for protagonist Bob Jones (Michael Keaton) and his wife Gail (Nicole Kidman) after Bob is diagnosed with terminal cancer, months before the birth of his and Gail's first child.

Samuel Atkinson Waterston (born November 15, 1940) is an American actor, producer, and director. Waterston is known for his work in theater, television and film. Waterston, having studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the American Actors Workshop, started his career in theater on the New York stage, appearing in multiple revivals of Shakespeare. In 1977, he starred in an off-Broadway production of Measure for Measure as Duke Vincentio alongside Meryl Streep and John Cazale at the Delacorte Theatre.^[1] Throughout Waterston's theater career, he continued to appear alongside actors such as Raul Julia in Indians (1969), James Woods in The Trial of Catonsville Nine (1970), Liv Ullmann in A Doll's House (1975), Jane Alexander in Hamlet (1975), and Glenn Close in Benefactors (1980). In 1993, he portrayed Abraham Lincoln onstage in Abe Lincoln in Illinois where he received a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for his performance. In 1974 Waterston played Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby (1974) alongside Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for his performance. He also appeared in Woody Allen's Interiors (1978), the Walter Matthau comedy Hopscotch, and Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate (both in 1980). He received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in Roland Joffe's The Killing Fields (1984), for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Waterston continued to appear in multiple Woody Allen films including Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), September (1987), and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). He also appeared in The Man in the Moon (1991) alongside Reese Witherspoon in her feature film debut, John Waters' Serial Mom (1994), and Oliver Stone's Nixon (1995). Recently he appeared in Miss Sloane (2016) and On the Basis of Sex (2018). In 1973, one of his early television roles included a television film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, alongside Katharine Hepburn. Among a variety of other television roles, he is perhaps most known for his iconic starring role as Jack McCoy on the NBC television series Law & Order (1994–2010, 2022-), for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Award along with Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award nominations. He also portrayed Abraham Lincoln in the miniseries Lincoln (1988). From 2012–2014, he portrayed Charlie Skinner in Aaron Sorkin's political HBO drama series The Newsroom alongside Jeff Daniels. In 2017 he appeared in the Emmy Award winning western limited series Godless on Netflix. He is currently starring in the Netflix comedy series Grace and Frankie (2015–present) alongside Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Martin Sheen. He has been nominated for multiple Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, British Academy Film Awards, and Emmy Awards, having starred in over 80 film and television productions during his 50-year career. He has also starred in numerous stage productions. AllMovie historian Hal Erickson characterized Waterston as having "cultivated a loyal following with his quietly charismatic, unfailingly solid performances." Waterston received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2012.