Actor Daniel Dae Kim first broke into Hollywood as one of the stars of popular TV series Lost. Since then, he's acted in and produced shows like Hawaii Five-0, The Good Doctor and Avatar: The Last Airbender, but Kim actually got his start doing experimental theater in college.
He still remembers performing on a beach in Connecticut in the middle of winter, wearing a loin cloth made of seaweed.
"I was on a rock ... and my big line, my intro line, was, 'I am Poseidon, god of the seas!'" Kim says. "My parents [were] up there and they told me they were thinking, ... 'You must really be dedicated to this, if you're willing to freeze your buns off in Connecticut for theater.'"
In the new Prime series, Butterfly, Kim plays David, a former spy for the U.S. who faked his own death years earlier to protect his young daughter. Now, almost 10 years later, David's daughter, Rebecca, thinking that her father is dead, has entered the world of espionage as an assassin. Kim's character comes out of hiding to try and save her from that life.
"At its heart, it's actually a family relationship drama," Kim says of the show, which he also executive produced. "And as a dad, I can tell you that a lot of the scenes between David, my character, and Rebecca resonated with me because I've made mistakes as a father and I've done so with the best of intentions, but the trauma that we can leave on our children and the trauma that is left on us as kids is sometimes something we really have to work hard to get through."
The series was filmed in more than 20 different locations throughout South Korea, from the mountains of Andong to the skyscrapers of Seoul. Kim says shooting in the market of his hometown of Busan was especially meaningful.
"I'd invited 15 of my cousins and aunts and uncles and nephews to come to set," he says. "And this being their first experience at all of show business in their neighborhood market was a moment I'll never forget, because it meant so much to me. It was literally the coming together of all of my worlds."
Interview highlights
On doing his most of own stunts in Butterfly
I've always liked action. I've done it throughout my career. And I've found that it helps ground me in scenes and helps my acting work. … I like to be fully activated through my body. Like sometimes I watch actors perform and there's a disconnect between what their mouth is saying and what their body is telling us through their language and the body language. And to me, it's important that everything works in synthesis and sometimes action helps me do that. Especially if there's a lot of conflict in a scene. I don't wanna manifest that through physical tension. But I do want to feel the stakes of it emotionally.
On feeling "rep sweats" — the pressure to be successful and represent your race/ethnicity well
When I started in Lost, my biggest fear was that the show would get canceled after the pilot, and obviously every actor fears that if they're in a job they love, but I feared it because the character of Jin in the pilot was not a likable character and played into some stereotypes that I'd been trying to avoid for most of my career. Had he not had the opportunity to grow the way he did through the series, I thought that I would be doing my community a disservice. And so those were the "rep sweats" I was going through. Thankfully, the creators of the show were not only incredible storytellers, but very conscious of this issue. And they worked hard to make sure that not only Jin, but every character was made three-dimensional and what you saw was not what you got, necessarily.
On his kids getting upset when he dies onscreen
I've heard a lot of my friends who are African Americans say, well, in the movies, a Black man's always first to die. I think there's some truth to that. But it was very similar for Asian people. Like, we were always the first to die. … It was happening so often in my career that when I would get an offer, I would talk to my kids and family and tell them all about it. The first question they would ask me was, "Do you die?" And that's when I knew I should take a look at this phenomenon.
It also made me realize the impact that my work was having on my kids and the perceptions they were taking away from the characters I was playing and what they represented. So it wasn't just representation with a capital "R" in the society. It was the representation in my own family and the example I was setting for my kids and how I was level setting their hopes and dreams inadvertently through my work. These were things that factored into all of my decisions since then.
On wishing he had a wider range of roles to play
I often think about what the consequences of representation are for that character. And it's a layer of consideration I wish I didn't have to have, because I would like to be free enough as an artist to be able to play any character that's interesting to me. And I think when we talk about representation, that's ultimately what we want. This idea that it's not about that we never want to play nerds or drug dealers or women play geishas. It's not that. It's that there's such a dearth of the other characters that we only get seen as those one things. But if we can play all of humanity, all of the kinds of colors on the spectrum of humanity, that's the goal. And until we get there though, we have to focus on the way that certain ideas of us have diminished who we are.
On how Hollywood has changed for the better
I really do think things have changed, for the positive. When you look at movies like Crazy Rich Asians and you see this idea of a romantic comedy that centers Asian Americans, it's something that could not have been done when I started my career. Just could not, I can't imagine any studio executive saying like, "That sounds like a moneymaker!"
We have made progress and when you see TV shows like Squid Game or Beef, we're seeing representation on a much more sophisticated level than we ever have, there are more actors of Asian descent who are working today than there ever have been — and so these are like unquestionable signs of progress that we have to note and appreciate. But I still haven't played a romantic lead and I've been doing this for 30 years. It's been a goal of mine since I started, but I just can't seem to get cast as someone who gets the girl.
Heidi Saman and Anna Bauman produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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