“Lost” Daniel Dae Kim plays a spy in 'Butterfly' thriller: npr

Actor Daniel Dae Kim broke for the first time as one of the stars of the popular TV series in Hollywood Lost. Since then he has in and produces shows like Hawaii five-0Present The good doctor And Avatar: The last airbenderBut Kim actually started doing experimental theater in College.

He still remembers that he performed on a beach in Connecticut in the middle of winter and wears a loincloth from seaweed.

“I was on a rock … and my big line, my intro line, was: 'I am Poseidon, God of the seas!'” Says Kim. “My parents [were] Up there and they told me that they thought: »You really have to stand up if you are ready to freeze your rolls in Connecticut for theater. '”

In the new Prime series, Butterfly, Kim plays David, a former spy for the United States, who made his own death years ago to protect his young daughter. Now, almost 10 years later, David's daughter Rebecca, who believed that her father is dead, has joined the world of espionage as an assassin. Kim's character comes from the hiding place to save her from this life.

“In the heart it is actually a family relationship drama,” says Kim about the show, which he also produced as an executive. “And as a father, I can tell you that many of the scenes between David, my character and Rebecca are charged with me because I made mistakes as a father and did this with the best intentions, but the trauma we can leave on our children, and the trauma that remains with children are sometimes something that we have to work hard to get through to get through.”

The series was shot in more than 20 different locations across South Korea, from the mountains from Andong to the Seoul skyscrapers. Kim says that shooting on the market of his hometown Busan is particularly meaningful.

“I had invited 15 of my cousins and aunts, uncle and nephew to come,” he says. “And this was her first experience in all show business on your neighborhood market, which I will never forget because it meant so much. It was literally the gathering of all of my worlds.”

Interview highlights

With most of his own stunts in butterfly

I always liked action. I did it throughout my career. And I found that it anchored me in scenes and helps my acting. … I like to be fully activated by my body. How sometimes I observe the actors and there is a separation between what your mouth says and what your body tells us through your language and body language. And for me it is important that everything works in synthesis and sometimes action helps me. Especially when there is a lot of conflict in one scene. I don't want to manifest this through physical tension. But I want to feel the missions emotionally.

If you feel “Rep Sweats” – the pressure to be successful and to present your breed/ethnicity well

When I started LostMy biggest fear was that the show would be canceled after the pilot, and obviously every actor feared that if you love you in a job, I was afraid because Jin's character was not a sympathetic character in the pilot and had played in some stereotypes that I tried for most of my career. If he hadn't had the opportunity to grow as he did in the series, I thought I would do a bad service to my community. And so that was the “Rep Sweats” that I went through. Fortunately, the creators of the show were not only incredible storytellers, but also very conscious. And they worked hard to ensure that not only Jin, but every character was made three -dimensional, and what they saw was not necessarily what they had.

His children are upset when he dies on the screen

I have many of my friends who are African Americans, in the cinemas say that a black man always dies the first. I think that has something true. But it was very similar for Asian people. We were always the first to die. … it happened so often in my career that when I got an offer I spoke to my children and my family and told them everything about it. The first question you would ask me was: “Do you die?” And then I knew that I should look at this phenomenon.

It also made it clear to me what effects my work had on my children, and the perceptions they took away from the characters I played and what they were. So it was not just the representation with a capital “R” in society. It was the presentation in my own family and the example that I set for my children and how I accidentally put their hopes and dreams through my work. These were things that have since been taken into account in all my decisions.

I wish he had a broader spectrum of roles to play

I often think about what the consequences of representation for this character have. And it is a consideration that I wish I shouldn't have because I want to be free enough as an artist to play a figure that is interesting for me. And I think when we talk about representation, we ultimately want what we want. This idea that it is not about, we never want to play nerds or drug dealers or women who play Geishas. It is not that. It is that the other characters are so poor that we are only seen as these things. But if we can play all of humanity, all types of colors in the spectrum of mankind, this is the goal. And until we arrive there, we have to concentrate in the way we have reduced certain ideas from us, who we are.

How Hollywood has changed better

I really think things have changed for the positive. If you watch films like Crazy rich Asians And you see this idea of a romantic comedy that Center Asian Americans, it is something that could not have been done when I started my career. I just can't imagine that a studio manager like: “That sounds like a money earner!”

We have made progress and when you see television programs like Squid game or beefWe see the representation on a much more sophisticated level than ever, there are more actors of Asian descent who work today than ever before – and so these are as undeniable signs of progress that we have to consider and appreciate. But I still haven't played a romantic tour for 30 years. It was a goal of mine since I started, but I just can't be occupied as someone who gets the girl.

Heidi Saman and Anna Bauman produced and worked on this interview for the show. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey have adjusted it for the web.