Sean was born Christopher Sean Friel on October 25, 1985, in Oak Harbor, Washington, to Sayuri and Patrick Friel. He has two sisters, Candis and Melody. While his family moved around a lot, Sean grew up mainly in Southern California. Sean is Japanese on his mother's side and Irish, Spanish and German on his father's side. Sean grew up in the military because his father was in the Navy. When his father Patrick was stationed away from home, he would put himself on video reading books to Christopher and his sisters and their mother would send recordings of her children to her husband. Sean explained that he was always very comfortable in front of the camera and those experiences inspired him to get into acting. Growing up, Sean had a big poster of Bruce Lee on his wall and admits there weren't many people for him to relate to in the entertainment industry. Sean speaks Japanese, which he picked up from his parents when his father was assigned to the USS Tripoli. Sean is trained in boxing, Taekwondo, wrestling, Jujutsu and mixed martial arts.
Career
Sean said that he was working at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor in Valencia, California when he was first "discovered." He started doing modeling work, and in 2007 he won the Mr. Asia USA pageant. Sean earned a $1,500 cash prize and a one-year acting class at the Michael John Studio in Van Nuys, California. Sean revealed that he struggled early on his career due to his mixed ethnicity, saying "I'm not Asian enough to play Asian roles and I'm not white enough to play white roles." He auditioned for ABC's daytime soap operaGeneral Hospital, where he admitted to screwing up the audition due to his lack of experience. Sean has made appearances on Hollywood Heights, The Mindy Project, and the web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. In 2014, he began playing the recurring role of Gabriel Waincroft on CBS's Hawaii Five-0. In October 2014, it was announced that Sean had joined the cast of Days of Our Lives as a contract cast member. His character, pro baseball player Paul Narita, comes out as gay and becomes involved in a love triangle with supercoupleWill Horton and Sonny Kiriakis, and is the illegitimate son of longtime character John Black. Sean currently voices lead character Kazuda Xiono in the animated seriesStar Wars Resistance.
