Tag: actor

Kevin Kreider is a model, actor, and entrepreneur who was adopted from Korea and raised in Philadelphia by German-Irish Catholic parents. Growing up in a community where adoption was normalized but identity was rarely discussed, he struggled to understand where he belonged—facing racism, confusion, and the feeling of never being “Asian enough” or “American enough.”

Stephen Park is an actor who was born in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, to Korean immigrant parents seeking to relocate their family away from the busy city. When he was a child, his family moved to a small town called Waverly before eventually settling in Vestal, New York. Stephen describes how he became a class clown during his school days—popular among his peers, but often made fun of or taken advantage of by the same “friends,” some of whom targeted him for his ethnicity.

Grace Yun is a distinguished production designer renowned for her work on films like Hereditary (2018), First Reformed (2017), and Past Lives (2023), as well as television series such as Ramy and Beef (2023).

Leonardo Nam was born in 1979 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the youngest of three children born to Korean immigrants who left their country in the aftermath of the Korean War. When he was six years old, his family moved to Australia, where he recalls being first moved by the spirit of acting while playing the role of Edmund in King Lear during an after-school program in Sydney. He describes the world of drama and theater as a source of refuge and community from a tumultuous household.

Daniel K. Isaac was born in 1988 in Los Angeles, California, to Korean immigrant parents who separated when he was a toddler. He grew up performing in church plays and participating in the Boy Scouts, later discovering his passion for theater through his high school’s productions. While in high school, he entered conversion therapy, influenced by his religious upbringing, but found in theater the family and community he longed for. Determined to pursue acting, he studied theater at UC San Diego, where he performed in a production every single quarter of his enrollment.

Kymber Lim, raised in Georgia, grew up fighting for her ambitions despite her immigrant parents’ expectations of a simple life. Her drive led her to college, where she thrived in production classes, impressing professors and diving into video production.

Will Yun Lee was born in 1971 in Arlington, Virginia, though he tells us that he spent much of his childhood moving around. After his parents’ divorce, he was cared for by family and friends for a while before moving back in with his father, who operated a Taekwondo studio in Hawaii.

MiRan Powell was born in Texas in 1964 to a Korean mother and a white father. At the time of her and her sister’s birth, anti-miscegenation laws were still in effect across parts of the United States. She recalls how their dual heritage brought them grief and confusion throughout childhood. Hoping her daughters would better assimilate into American society, her mother did not teach her Korean beyond a few folk songs. Because her maternal relatives lived in North Korea, she was never able to meet them. The stories her mother told of Korea felt like little more than fairy tales.

In her career as an actress, MiRan has played a wide range of characters, including a British heiress, Japanese maiden, and a Greek Princess. However, regardless of the roles she was cast in, MiRan tells us that her goal was always to just become “the best actress that she could be.” On stage, she has had to find and command a confidence she hoped she possessed as a child while navigating the anxieties of her identity. She has since transformed this confidence into a sense of responsibility, advocating for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Daniel K. Isaac is best known for his ensemble role on the Showtime series Billions where he plays portfolio manager Ben Kim. But 2022 was a pivotal year for the actor and playwright, whose passion is the stage. He starred in The Chinese Lady at the Public Theater; he made his playwriting debut with Once Upon a (korean) Time for the Ma-Yi Theater Company; and he’s currently starring opposite Linda Lavin in You Will Get Sick at the Roundabout Theater. Daniel was born in Southern California, the only child of a single mother active in her evangelical Korean church. As a gay teenager, he struggled against his sexual orientation and even underwent conversion therapy. (Spoiler alert: It did not work.) In a candid, funny and yes, raunchy, conversation he opens up about his early sexual experiences, his estrangement from his father and his ongoing conflict with his mother, who disowned him when he was in college and is still “in the closet” about being the mom of a gay son — despite the fact that Isaac has turned many of her remarks into the viral hashtag #accordingtomymother. Prepare to laugh, cry and cover your young children’s ears.

In recent years we’ve seen a boom of Asian American actors in film and TV. But for decades, John Cho was practically the only one. He first came to fame in 2004 playing Harold in the Harold and Kumar films, a role that challenged many people’s ideas about what a leading man could look like. He’s built his career thoughtfully ever since, taking roles (Sulu in the Star Trek films, Spike Spiegel in Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop) that don’t play into negative stereotypes. The son of a minister, Cho was born in Seoul and moved to the States when he was six. He has just written his first book, Troublemaker, a middle grade novel about a 12-year-old Korean American boy’s experience of the LA riots. In a candid and open conversation, Cho recalls his own experience of 사이구(SaIGu), his memories of growing up in the church and the bottled up anger he’s often felt as an Asian American man. Juliana and Catherine also get to hear about Cho’s love of Little House on the Prairie and how books helped him through his peripatetic childhood.