Yunjin Kim Breaks Down Her Most Iconic Characters

The guard is always like, Are you on the show?

I'm like, Yes, and he's like, Extra's over there.

I'm like, Sir, I'm number one on the show. Number one!

And I would literally,

I would always leave a call sheet on the sign.

You see this Asian name, that's me.

[upbeat music]

Lost.

[speaking Korean]

[speaking Korean]

I kept getting cast in an American project

but that would fall through,

like I would think, Oh, finally, I'm gonna get to act.

You know, I kind of missed acting in English.

It's slightly different.

You know, my first audition was Lost.

It was with JJ and it was with the whole gang,

Brian Burke and everybody.

And because JJ got delayed,

I was like, one of the first or the third person going in.

And I was just like, Oh my,

I got so annoyed because my mom was coming in.

I had to pick her up and it's like,

my mom's more important than the audition, right?

I didn't really know, I was like,

Oh, who's this JJ guy, so late.

And I waited and you know, I kind of like,

walked in kind of like, a little annoyed,

but I kind of used it,

and this is what's so cool about JJ Abrams.

He was like, You're not right for this role.

And I was like, Okay, thank you very much.

He was like, Wait, sit down, let me get back to you.

I was like, Okay.

And I was like, I rushed to the airport.

[Host] Wow. And that's when

I got the call, they literally called like,

an hour later and said, We love her,

we wanna write her a role.

We don't know exactly what, but can we hold her?

So, and then literally like, within a couple hours,

they created the character Sun and they asked

if I would feel comfortable speaking Korean on the show.

And I was like, Sure,

but I am gonna eventually speak in English, right?

I need to talk to you.

[intense music]

I knew like, if we were gonna fail, it was gonna be like,

crash, like it was gonna be bad failure.

But if we were gonna succeed, I knew we would be pretty big.

When we first started press for Lost,

one of the ABC publicist came to Daniel Dae Kim and I,

she came up to us and she said, Do you know

that you guys are the first two Asian Americans to be cast

as serious regulars on a network show?

And I said, No, really?

I don't know if she went through all the history

or all the lists but it's so easy to believe.

Your wife had an affair.

What?

[hand smacking]

Jin dying with me was so tragic.

It's like, so beautiful at the same time.

That was sort of like, what our character represented.

We were sort of like, the heart of Lost, you know.

[emotional music]

Shiri.

I got cast in a movie called Shiri

and when I read it, I was like, and I didn't even audition.

That's the crazy part.

This was never a plan.

I never thought I could, you know,

I would act in Korean and actually live in Korea,

you know what I mean, that was never in the realm

of my reality back then.

I was born here in Seoul, Korea.

My whole family immigrated when I was 10 years old.

And you know, obviously I didn't speak a word of English.

And so once I got there,

I would just sit there like a mute child.

So, I went through that type of phase

and my teacher was like, Why don't you try like,

drama club after school?

So I was like, Okay.

That's when I started getting the confidence

and sort of like, learning to use my voice all over again.

Sort of started out with, you know, junior high school.

And then I auditioned for the High School

of Performing Arts, it's, you know, when I went,

it's still Fiorello H. LaGuardia,

but you know, the Fame school.

So I got like, two, three books of monologues

and I picked two out and I didn't know what I was doing.

And I went and surprisingly, I got in

and that's when I really learned

what acting is and all that.

And I got, you know, I've been hooked ever since.

I went to Boston University and major in acting

and I got cast in a Korean ministries from New York.

We started shooting in New York

and I had to come to Korea to finish it off.

And then I went back, that aired.

I started getting calls from Korea.

I was just like, I don't think I could do acting here.

The director wanted someone new.

There's shots of me, just the eyes, or like,

the back of my head.

If he cast a famous actress in that role,

people would, you know, know, but my identity,

the character's identity, had to be sealed.

So, obviously he was looking for a fresh face

and I just had a meeting and I got cast.

And then I found out who my partner was gonna be

and who was gonna be in the film.

And I was like, what?

The actors who are in the film were like,

the top of the top.

I tried everything to get the character right

and because I wasn't used to the film medium,

I didn't know how much I needed to portray,

how much it was gonna come across.

You know, I was so, you know,

I had no idea what I was doing.

[speaking Korean]

[speaking Korean]

And when I play the role, the sick woman,

who the lead takes the identity of, you know,

we did the fake tooth, the wig and the whole like,

skin, you know, because she's a sick woman.

We did all that but like, still,

I wasn't sure, I couldn't trust all that.

Now I'm like, Oh, I trust you guys.

And I don't, you know, I just do, but like,

I didn't eat for about a week.

Mistresses.

Mistresses, I mean, obviously I wanted to play a role

that was very different from Lost's Sun, even though,

you know, I loved playing Sun on Lost.

I wanted to do something sexy, something fun,

something light, and Mistresses came along

and it was my, I mean, it was just, you know, obviously,

you know, it's always about four women navigating,

you know, love and after Sex and the City,

you can't have three or five, it's gonna be four women.

God, we've missed you.

What have you been doing these past few months?

And who have you been doing?

You look way too good to be wasting all this action

on mental cases.

Honestly, I wish I had something more interesting

to tell you guys, but I've just been working nonstop.

Alyssa was sort of like, the last person to, like,

I met the other two actresses.

We hung out and we kept saying,

[hesitating] Who's gonna play her, who's gonna play Savi?

But like, her deal took a very long time.

So anyway, but I mean, it was just like,

Wow, I used to watch you on television. [laughs]

She was like the biggest child star.

I mean, I used to be like, Oh, I love her.

She's so pretty.

But you know, now she's like, one of my cool friends.

My life is on the line.

You can't talk to me about it?

That's fine. I get it.

But I am done playing nice with this woman.

Make sure you tell her that I am not going down

without a fight.

And whenever I pull in a new location, you know,

because we drive ourselves, not like here,

but the guard is always like, Are you on the show?

I'm like, Yes, and he's like, Extra's over there.

I'm like, Sir, I'm number one on this show.

And I would literally, I would always leave a call sheet

on the sign and I would be like, You see this Asian name?

That's me. [laughs]

It's great, isn't it?

That I get to tell this, I mean, he means no harm.

He just doesn't know and he's not used to it

because he is never seen it before.

But I'm gonna show him now, listen, you see this Asian name?

That's me, I'm Asian and I'm number one

on a network show, okay?

It wasn't just me, you know, there is that, you know,

of course, Daniel Dae Kim, Sandra Oh, John Cho.

Now Steve Young, come on, I mean like,

and they happen to be Korean Americans.

Ode to My Father.

[crowd cheering]

[upbeat pop music]

I always came back to Korea to work every break I had,

every hiatus, I had a project,

and obviously once, you know,

you sign a contract for seven years on a network show,

you have to get permission to do anything,

even though it's outside of United States.

So, it never felt like I ever stopped working here in Korea.

I just went away for nine months to do something else

in a different country and then I came back.

I was already very good friends with the director.

He said, it's male driven, you know, movie.

And he was literally like, I'm so sorry but,

you're gonna have to do this, can you please do it?

Like, I'm gonna make sure I'm gonna take care

of your character.

And I read it, I was like, I don't care if it's based

on a male character.

I mean, it's literally translated into ode to my father,

it's not ode to my mother.

And I was like, it's totally fine.

And he was like, No, we're gonna add you in, in these,

like the Kwon Ju sequence where he's looking for his sister,

that whole sequence, he wanted to add my character into it.

I was like, No, I think it's better with the, you know,

with his best friend going there

and doing this journey just with him.

I was like, Plus I have to work,

who's gonna open the store, right?

I mean, like, you know, just in the world of

[speaks Korean] so he was just like, Really?

And I was like, It's totally okay.

And after seeing a film, he was just like,

You were so right about that.

Money Heist: Korea.

I saw the first two seasons of the original Money Heist.

And I saw it when I was back in LA, huge fan of the show,

so I was like, Ah, is this right? I mean, why touch it?

It's like, so amazing already.

[speaking Korean]

[speaking Korean]

[speaking Korean]

The script really convinced me,

just the whole premise of, you know,

we're on the verge of unification with North Korea

and South Korea and so forth.

And just, but each location, like in the task force,

I'm butting heads with North Korean, you know,

negotiator, as well.

So there is an extra layer.

Yunjin is not only battling the professor, you know,

the robbers in the bank and trying to save the hostages.

I'm battling with another layer with the whole tension

between a South Korean cops and North Korean cops

and them butting heads, the politicians giving us pressure.

[crowd yelling]

[speaking Korean]

[speaking Korean]

I thought this type of layer, and just combining

that the new elements in the script, it really worked.

Can I tell you, I used to dream,

like after like, a very stressful day,

feeling lonely, out of place, feeling like I'm starting

from scratch when I was shooting Lost,

I used to put my head down, like about to go to sleep

and I used to be like, I wish here is Korea.

Like, I wish it would switch.

The career that I built would just kind of like,

switch and I would get the same thing

in America that I would, you know, do you know what I mean?

Just switching places, kind of.

I'm not saying that's what's happening now,

but just the idea of being able to shoot everything

that's Korea in Korean with Korean directors, producers,

Korean system, especially with Korean actors.

And then it gets shown in like, other countries?

Like, who would've thought?

I'm so lucky to be part of it, in middle of it.

This is actually happening in my lifetime?

Who would've thought, you know? I'm thrilled.