People have been left seriously blown away by Daniel Dae Kim’s articulate, off-the-cuff remarks about “ethnic-specific casting” in a recent interview for American Masters.
For reference, 57-year-old Daniel was born in South Korea, but moved to the United States when he was one year old, and grew up in Pennsylvania. He is arguably best known for his performance as Jin-Soo Kwon in the ABC series Lost, with his character speaking in Korean for most of the show.
In the interview, the star was simply asked: “What’s your approach to ethnic-specific casting?” and he did not hesitate as he articulately called out the “overcorrection” that Asian American actors are facing in Hollywood.
“Very often, when we’re cast, if the role calls for a Korean American, they will not see a Japanese American or a Chinese American or any other Asian nationality, but there are very often times when the role itself has not been thought through — it doesn’t require any kind of specificity in the story or in the specifics of the character,” he explained. “Because, very often, it’s not even written by an Asian person, so they don’t know the difference in what they’re asking for, and yet casting is being very specific.”
“I think there are times when nationality-specific casting is important,” Daniel then acknowledged. “For instance, when there’s an authentic language requirement in the world, or it’s based on someone who’s a real person that has cultural significance to that particular country, and in those cases, I really feel like we need to be specific. But oftentimes, we’re being cast as roles specifically when the characters themselves are fictitious and they don’t even exist in real life.”
“Anytime there’s a role that focuses, to me, on the American experience of being Asian, that’s something that, no matter whether you’re Korean, Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, that’s something we all share in common,” he continued. “We all know what it feels like to be othered; that’s a common experience. And so, to me, the nationality isn’t as important.”
“I’d like to see us take the next step in the way we think about ethnic-specific casting, and I believe it started from a good place, because originally it was like: ‘Well, you know, we can’t just consider them all as one,’ that’s true!” Daniel concluded. “But we need to be a little bit more sophisticated now about how we can open opportunities to actors.”
“It’s why Reina Hardesty is cast as my daughter in Butterfly,” he then gave as an example. “She’s not Korean American, she’s Japanese American, and she’s mixed race Japanese American. That was a deliberate choice on my part, because the significant part of her character was the idea of feeling alienated and alone in America — you don’t have to be Korean American to feel that way.”
This interview clip was shared on a popular Reddit forum, where it quickly earned thousands of upvotes as people praised Daniel for how well thought-out his answer was, especially as it was so spontaneous.