How Daniel Dae Kim’s ‘Butterfly’ bridges Korean and American culture

“Butterfly” is actor and producer Daniel Dae Kim’s love letter to Korea and America.

Launching Wednesday, Prime Video’s South Korea-set spy thriller follows David Jung (Kim), a former U.S. intelligence operative who comes out of hiding to reunite with his daughter Rebecca (Reina Hardesty), a deadly agent who grew up believing he was dead.

“It’s been my dream because it represents the two major parts of who I am,” says Kim during a video call in late July. “I’m a Korean who was raised in America, and these are the two countries that I love. Why not try and bridge the two cultures? I’m uniquely suited to do that.”

Based on the graphic novel series created by Arash Amel, Kim describes the show as “a relationship drama” where “the action and the conflicts come out of an emotional place.”

“One of the things that was really important to me about the conception of David is that I didn’t want him to be someone that was not without flaws,” says Kim, who also serves as an executive producer on the series. “A lot of his actions come from a place of pain. A lot of Rebecca’s character arc emanates from a place of pain.”

“Butterfly” includes plenty of action — including hand-to-hand fights and shootouts — but it’s the central family drama, as well as how it is reflected in the action scenes, that the show’s co-creators Ken Woodruff and Steph Cha also tout. Rebecca’s story in particular was one of the elements Woodruff immediately responded to when he first read the original comic book series.

“My parents got divorced when I was young … and my dad moved across the country and started a whole new family within a year or two,” Woodruff says. “There was just this really palpable connection that I felt with Rebecca’s relationship with her father because there’s love there, but there’s also animosity and resentment and jealousy. That really hooked me in.”

Daniel Dae Kim plays David Jung in “Butterfly.”

(Juhan Noh / Prime)

Though the graphic novel takes place in Europe and America, Kim saw moving the story to South Korea and centering a Korean and Korean American family as an opportunity to bridge Hollywood and Korean entertainment. This meant advocating for top Korean actors to be cast — like Park Hae-soo, Kim Ji-hoon and Kim Tae-hee — and hiring a Korean director for a block of the episodes.

“Daniel really cared about bridging these two cultures and doing it in a very respectful way and really making sure that we got it right,” Woodruff says. “At times, [in] different circumstances, his feet were really held to the fire and he did not blink. He’d really advocate for the Korean characters, making sure that those actors and their roles were as fleshed out and as interesting as every other character.”

One of the things that stood out for Cha was just how much care Kim took to look after everyone working on the show.

“He is always very good about making sure that people feel included and valuable,” Cha says. “He took it upon himself to make sure that the Korean cast felt welcome and well-integrated, and that the American cast was comfortable in Korea.”

“He has a lot of nunchi,” adds Woodruff about Kim’s care for others, displaying some of the Korean language skills he picked up thanks to the Korean crew, whom the creators also credited for ensuring Korean culture was represented authentically on the show.

Kim is just grateful for the shifts in the industry and mainstream culture that made a show like “Butterfly,” which was shot in Korea and features a significant amount of Korean dialogue, possible.

“I don’t think ‘Butterfly’ could have been made even 10 years ago,” says Kim. “The change in philosophy, I think, is so significant in the kinds of stories that we get to tell now. [And] if we do our jobs right, there’ll be many more just like us.”

In a conversation edited for length and clarity, Kim discusses his new series, his approach to producing and the importance of using his platform.

“I’m a Korean who was raised in America and these are the two countries that I love. Why not try and bridge the two cultures?” says Daniel Dae Kim.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

What was your process of discovering David? How did you come to understand him?

It wasn’t hard because I’m a father myself. I understood how difficult it can be to raise children and how our work often gets in the way of being a good dad. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations because of our work where we have to make difficult choices about our families. David made a choice that he felt was right but it ended up being the absolute wrong choice for his daughter — whether he’s strong enough to face the consequences of that decision is really what the first season is about. How much pain can he tolerate because of the pain he inflicted on his daughter? And, to be honest, how selfish is he that he still wants his vision of a family, even though a choice that he made destroyed it?

That seems like a different kind of father from the one you play in “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

They’re different. But for me, the core of it is the same: What does it mean to be a father guiding a young life and a young psyche? Ozai makes the choice where he needs his child to follow in his footsteps in terms of leadership and style. And if his child cannot do that, then his child fails. His priority is on the mission. I think for David, it might have been that to a lesser degree, but now he’s realized that that’s not the choice he wants.

Can someone have a second chance at being a good dad? That, to me, is something that is very human. It’s very universal. People say about the show, “Well, it’s shot in Korea. It’s got an Asian lead and it’s about an Asian family. I don’t know if I can relate.” If you have children, or you’ve had parents, you can probably relate to what’s going on in this show.

“Butterfly” captures a lot of nuance that tends to get lost in media where identities get flattened instead of conveying the different shades of experiences that encompasses being Korean, being Korean American, also while being in Korea.

That’s why it was important to me that Rebecca be half Asian because that’s another part of the experience that we haven’t explored fully yet. I look forward to that part of it because Rebecca is someone who’s not only half American, half Asian — she’s also someone without a mother and lost her father, or so she thought. For a lot of my childhood, being Asian American meant that I felt like I was between two worlds and a member of neither. But now I’m in a place in my career and as an artist where I can embrace both of those things and say I actually can speak authentically to both experiences, and not many people can do that. To me, that’s very novel in the way we approach this show. I tried to do it with the amount of respect and love that I have for both cultures.

You mention Rebecca, and that relationship is central to the show. What was it like establishing that dynamic with Reina Hardesty?

We were so lucky to find Reina in the casting process. It’s not easy to ask someone to go to Korea for six months, start training, do a lot of heavy action and find the emotional depths that are required for this character. It’s a very challenging role. When she came aboard all of the producers just breathed a huge sigh of relief and were so excited because we felt, to your point, that now we have a show.

You’re often recognized as one of the people who have been paving the way for other Asian American artists in the industry.

I stand on the shoulders of a lot of people who came before, and they may not have been as successful as I’ve been fortunate enough to be, but that’s the way this works. People blaze a trail so that other people can walk down it without getting pricked by thorns. So for me, it’s a parallel to my journey as a dad. My goal is to create a life for my children so that they do better than I’ve done. That they’d be better people, that they’d be more successful, they’d be better to others. I want that for us as Asian American artists.

Even when we were struggling, there was a generation of us, like Joel de la Fuente and Will Yun Lee and Ron Yuan, who would call each other all the time when there were auditions. There were so few at the time that our philosophy was, if it’s not me, I want it to be you. Quite frankly, given the way our society is today, I think we could all use a little bit more of that feeling — that we’re all looking out for one another a little bit more than we have in the recent past.

Rebecca (Reina Hardesty) and David (Daniel Dae Kim) are reunited in “Butterfly.”

(Juhan Noh / Prime)

What has it been like to navigate these times, where the industry is contracting and people outside of it are increasingly vocal in speaking out against diversity and inclusion?

It reminds me of that quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Or, if you’re more financially minded, you’re going to have up days and down days in the market, but what you’re looking for is the trend line. I’m hopeful that what we’re experiencing right now is just a down day, and that we will continue to trend in the right direction.

I really am confident that a lot more people understand what it is to think about our community as inclusive and not just a way where it’s a bad word. But just to seek understanding of experiences other than your own. And that goes for everyone, not just the minority and majority politics. There’s so many things I learn every day from people who are not like me and I just feel like that’s a more interesting way to live, personally.

As far as our community is concerned, we’re better off now than we have ever been in terms of representation. But that doesn’t mean that we are where we need to be. Some would say that that’s a cop-out, this glass half full and half empty. But it is a question of perspective. For me, I choose to acknowledge and appreciate the strides that we’ve made, and also understand that there’s still a ways to go, as you can see in today’s news, when it comes to understanding one another and showing compassion for another’s journey.

If you think thematically about our show, it’s really about bringing people together, bringing a family together, as a metaphor for our larger community. We can all have made mistakes. We can all have done things that we regret. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t try to rectify them and be better people.

One of the biggest movies out right now is “KPop Demon Hunters,” on which you had a voice role, Healer Han. What goes into your decision on joining a project like this? Have you been surprised at the reception?

I always think about what the semiotics of a project are when I take it. What’s the representation like? What’s the character like? Who are the people doing it? What’s the story? All these things go into the matrix of how I make these decisions. And “KPop Demon Hunters” was a project in the same spirit as “Butterfly.” It was taking a form of entertainment that’s Korean but putting it into English to make it for Americans and the world outside of Korea. There were Korean Americans behind it, just like “Butterfly.” I saw that when they asked me to do it, and it was an easy yes.

But no one can ever tell what the impact of a project is going to be when you’re making it. I did not expect this from “KPop Demon Hunters,” but I sure had a good time voicing the role, and that was one of the reasons I did it too. I enjoy comedy, and when I do voice roles I get to do more of it so I leaned into it and thought this was a fun character.

The 4-year-old in my life is obsessed with “KPop Demon Hunters.”

My entire social media feed is “KPop Demon Hunters” right now. And I gotta say, watching the Korean K-pop stars embrace “KPop Demon Hunters” was as meaningful to me as watching non-Koreans embrace it. Because very often in Korea, Korean American stories don’t resonate, but now they’re just starting to. Maybe “Butterfly” can be a part of that, and Koreans will take note of Korean Americans as well as Americans taking note of Korean Americans. We’ve always been that middle group, and hopefully we’ll be able to shine in the spotlight.

What has it been like for you to see the explosive popularity of Korean entertainment — like K-pop and K-dramas — in the mainstream?

First of all, I’m surprised, because I grew up at a time where no one even knew what being Korean was. When I was a kid, people would ask me, “Are you Chinese?” I say no. And they say, “Are you Japanese?” I say no. And they would say, “Then, what are you?” There was that little awareness of Korea. When I was a kid, my friends would come to my house and they would see my mom making kimchi, and they would say, “What is that stink?” But now, not only do people know what it is, but people are eating it, understanding the probiotic qualities that it has. It’s part of our culture. It makes me swell with pride. I’m so happy for my kids that they don’t even know what it feels like to be embarrassed because you’re Korean. That’s a good place to be.

“I choose to acknowledge and appreciate the strides that we’ve made, and also understand that there’s still a ways to go,” says Daniel Dae Kim on AAPI representation in Hollywood.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

We’ve focused more on your acting work, but what does it mean for you to also take on the role of a producer in something like “Butterfly”?

As an actor, you’re only able to participate in the projects that ask for you. We’re always auditioning or hoping that a director likes us or a producer likes us or a studio likes us. But as a producer, you become the job creator, and I love the idea of creating opportunities for people. That’s one of the reasons I started to produce in the first place. There was such a dearth that I thought, well, let me go upstream and figure out why there is such a shortage of roles. Well, it’s because people aren’t creating them, so why don’t I try and start creating them.

People like to think that my company [3AD] is just for Asian Americans, but it’s not. It’s really for all those on the margins. That’s really the story that I want to tell as a producer. We’ve all heard the story of the high school party through the eyes of the jocks and the cheerleaders and the popular kids. But I want to hear the story of that same high school party from the people who snuck in or weren’t even invited, or the ones who are sitting at home not at the party. What are those stories, because to me, they’re the ones that haven’t been told before.

What was it like building the team you’re working with on “Butterfly”?

Being a job creator means that you can identify not just actors that you want to work with, but also writers. I’m very proud of the fact that so much of our writing staff was Asian American, or had some intimate knowledge of Asian culture, specifically the Korean culture. We were able to hire a crew that was 100% Korean and also we achieved very close, if not a 50-50 balance between men and women on our crew. These kinds of things matter to me. I have such a level of respect for our showrunner, Ken Woodruff, because he’s not Asian American but he highlights the fact that you don’t have to be Asian American to be a good ally and to be a good partner. Ken has been incredibly respectful of what he doesn’t know through this whole process, and has been very deferential when it comes to things like the culture of Korea and the way that being Korean affects these characters and the storylines. At the same time, he’s been really good about leading the way in everything he’s learned in his many years as a storyteller guiding the writers room. To me, it’s the epitome of a good partnership. People talk about allyship; this is allyship in action. I don’t know that I’ve ever worked with a better showrunner than Ken Woodruff, and I’ve been in this business for 30 years.

You’ve also been vocal on issues that are important to you. Why are you motivated to speak out in that way?

Because I’m a human being and because I’m a citizen. I think it’s always better when you have an informed citizenry. That’s not meant to say that only one side is right and the other is wrong. But I am a big believer in education. I’m a big believer in asking questions and it’s something I try to do in my real life. Ask, when I see something going on in the world around me that seems unjust or objectionable, “Why is that? How did it get that way?” I think we all are entitled to have our opinion and the more educated it is, and the more well researched it is, the stronger that opinion can be. People say, “shut up and act” the way that they would tell athletes, “shut up and dribble,” but no one says to a plumber, “shut up and fix pipes.” Everyone who has a job also is a citizen, is a human being, is affected by the policies around us every day. Part of being in a democracy means making your voice heard so that we can affect change together.

The journey of our show is how to reconcile two characters and their differences. Open dialogue, continuing to want to learn and being respectful, I think, are things that seem to be in short supply these days and it makes me a little sad. I’m hopeful that some of the stories that I get to tell can bring us together rather than divide us.