This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:16] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, this is Tonya Pinkins, um, maker, actor, singer. I'm not a dancer, definitely not, don't ask me. Um, educator, author, painter, and I'm tired today. I'm a little groggy because I was up till about three in the morning watching the first movie of my guest today. He's blushing over there. Uh, I was up all night watching Hackers. What a great movie. She has joined me in welcoming actor, teacher, director, producer, Peter Kim.

[0:52] Peter Kim: Hi everyone. Thank you so much, Tonya. And that is really funny that you bring it up because it is hitting its 25th anniversary.

[1:00] Tonya Pinkins: Really?

[1:01] Peter Kim: Yes. And um, there's apparently this really big kind of event that's happening in Las Vegas in August that I was just invited to. So I'm trying to figure out my schedule. Hopefully, I can make it. But um, yeah, that is a blast from the past, but I will say people to this day still like stop me. And it was it's so fascinating. It really spoke to people at that time. And it's no, it's a good movie. It's a really good movie.

[1:30] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I definitely think it was a it was kind of ahead of its time, you know, and um, and you know, it was Angelina Jolie's first feature.

[1:42] Peter Kim: And it was crazy. But the whole cast of Fisher Stevens, Johnny Lee Miller, Wendell Pierce. I mean, like, what a kick-ass cast.

[1:52] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, it was pretty amazing. I mean, it was definitely my first feature film that I'd ever done. It was definitely the most like, you know, I at be at that point I had Razor and Blade.

[2:03] Peter Kim: Yes, yes. I was Blade of Razor and Blade. Um, at that point, I had just done like my first off-Broadway show, which was uh, it was called New York Rock by Yoko Ono. It was a rock opera.

[2:17] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[2:18] Peter Kim: Uh, back at the WPA.

[2:20] Tonya Pinkins: Do you remember that?

[2:22] Peter Kim: WPA.

[2:22] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, it was such a great place. Anyway, so I did that show and then I booked Hackers, and um, it's actually like a really meaningful um experience for me because I I was uh I was like a freshman in college at the time, and my parents were like I there are no artists in my family. They're uh my parents are immigrants from Korea, they're self-made, you know, they started they they came to the states really poor, you know. And um, you know, so stability and per was really important to them, and pursuing a career in the arts was like not really what they thought of as stable.

[3:02] Peter Kim: I would yeah I would say, yes. Though I will have to say that for myself, that's like how people always projected on me, and as I stand where I am now, like I'm real stable. Like my retirement looks really, really good. Like my career in the arts set me up to have a really nice life. So I mean, look uh hold hold up though, but let's also say this is Tonya Pinkins we're talking about here. Okay, so may we all be as uh lucky being born with that talent. Um, but yeah, so that movie actually, I I invited my parents. We shot in New York and in London, and when we were in New York, I invited my parents to set. And I think when they saw like the sheer magnitude of like the expense actually that was being put into a feature film.

[3:49] Tonya Pinkins: Yes.

[3:50] Peter Kim: Um, you know, like a commercial feature film, not like an indie film, they I think got it. They were like, oh, you know, they're like, oh, okay. And then they knew how much I was getting paid for it and stuff, and they were like, oh, okay. So that experience actually gave them, I think, the confidence in me to actually be able to pursue a career in the arts.

[4:10] Tonya Pinkins: Are you their only child?

[4:12] Peter Kim: No, I have three older sisters who are phenomenal and amazing. We're super close. Um, but I am the youngest of four and I am the only boy. So in Korean culture, there's a lot of pressure there. And then you add on top the fact that I'm gay, like that that could definitely is uh that's worthy of a whole podcast in and of itself.

[4:31] Tonya Pinkins: When did you come out?

[4:32] Peter Kim: Uh, I came out to, I think myself, I would say, probably in like my senior year of high school.

[4:40] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[4:40] Peter Kim: But um, that was just to myself, and I my best friend to this day. I I told her that I thought I was bisexual. And then in I think it was my freshman year of um of college that I I came out to myself and then came out to other people. And um, and right around that time was when I was doing Hackers, actually. And you know, the extraordinary Darren Lee who plays Razor in the movie, you know, at that point I didn't know a lot of um gay men, in particular of Asian descent.

[5:14] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[5:14] Peter Kim: And Darren Lee, if people who are listening don't know, Darren Lee has like 12 Broadway shows under his belt. You know, like this guy was like, I mean, he's he's an amazing performer, but he was killing it on the Broadway scene at that time. And I remember meeting him when once we got cast and just being really in awe of him and also realizing like, oh, like you can be an out gay man and like it's okay. And I think even when we were shooting it, we didn't really talk about my sexuality or anything, but um, I think a few weeks into production, we then I eventually did. And um, so yeah, that that experience on that movie was was really important to me in in many, many ways.

[5:58] Tonya Pinkins: And then when you told the parents, yeah, I came out to my parents probably in my mid-20s.

[6:04] Peter Kim: Okay.

[6:05] Peter Kim: Um, and it was definitely hard. I mean, I I will say the question that I have before we come, because we get a lot of coming out stories.

[6:12] Tonya Pinkins: Sure.

[6:12] Peter Kim: I'm interested in the the not coming out stories, you know, where you're still inside and you can't and you know the awkwardness that it has to be to, you know, your parents are telling me they want the kids. I can imagine like when are you getting married and when are we gonna get the grandkids? Like, what is that piece?

[6:30] Peter Kim: I I think, you know, I I will uh uh people say it all the time, but like coming out is a process, and you have to come out multiple times in your life. And so um, you know, first step was coming out to myself, and then I came out to my sisters actually before telling my parents. And then um it was actually a few years between my sisters knowing and my parents finding out.

[6:51] Tonya Pinkins: Did they know?

[6:53] Peter Kim: Uh, my sisters. I mean, like I remember I had a lot of guy friends in high school who were like in love with me, but I knew they were gay.

[7:00] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[7:01] Peter Kim: And so like they were just, you know, telling me how much they were in love with me. And I was like, one day you'll figure that out. I mean, I didn't tell them that was right, right. You know, so it's like, did your sisters, were they like like I think wouldn't a mother know that?

[7:13] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, you know, I think my sisters probably had suspicions.

[7:18] Peter Kim: Okay.

[7:18] Peter Kim: Um, but they you know like I grew up in a very Catholic um family. My mom was going to be a nun before she met my dad. I have a uncle who is a Catholic priest and has a congregation. He just retired but he had a congregation in the Bronx for like 30 years. So you know being raised so Catholic I think there were a lot of blind like I was raised Catholic I know.

[7:41] Tonya Pinkins: Oh yeah so you're and you know just not it's kind of like you can't even really yeah imagine it so why even bother um so with my parents um you know I I didn't come out to them until I was financially stable. And that was uh a conscious decision on my part because um you know through college my parents supported me and post college you know they helped me out and so I knew that it was a real possibility that I would just get disowned from the family.

[8:13] Peter Kim: So um I made sure that I was able to take care of myself before doing so.

[8:17] Tonya Pinkins: And but that's a hard burden to bear thinking that they might disown me did they clearly don't they did not yeah they were they were really supportive uh they were supportive in the best way that they could have and basically I have never been disowned by them they've always um, you know, they always I know for a fact they owe they love me a hundred percent um but it was definitely a struggle um and then um yeah I guess that was more of my practicality my practical mind the sisters might have like told prepped them for it.

[8:50] Peter Kim: I don't think so.

[8:51] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[8:51] Peter Kim: Okay.

[8:51] Peter Kim: Yeah.

[8:52] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[8:52] Peter Kim: Yeah.

[8:52] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[8:53] Peter Kim: No. I think my mom, I think my mom sort of had suspicions.

[8:58] Peter Kim: Um, but my my dad was completely taken aback by the whole thing.

[9:03] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[9:04] Peter Kim: Um, and then, you know, my par I don't know about you, but my parents told my sisters, uh, just and me, like they don't want to meet anybody unless you're gonna get married to them.

[9:14] Tonya Pinkins: Oh.

[9:14] Peter Kim: It was like, no boyfriends, like, don't bring anybody home unless you're gonna marry them.

[9:19] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[9:20] Peter Kim: So that no pressure. But um, so I I took that to heart, and I I never and I had boyfriends, you know, at the time and throughout, but until I met my husband, Michael, um, I did not invite anyone home or introduce them to anyone.

[9:36] Tonya Pinkins: But marriage, gay marriage wasn't even.

[9:38] Peter Kim: It was did I not meet him till then? No, I guess I guess in my mind, it was like, well, as long as I know that this is like the person, the person, then I'm not gonna but that was about 10 years after, no, not ten years, probably like five to seven years after I came out to them that I introduced them to Michael.

[9:59] Tonya Pinkins: Wow.

[9:59] Peter Kim: Um, yeah. But even then, I'm spilling the beans. Um, because I think it's important for people to hear, you know, it wasn't until Michael and I decided to get married that once again it was a real kind of reckoning with my parents.

[10:15] Peter Kim: Um, to it was yet again like another coming out.

[10:19] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[10:19] Peter Kim: Because I think on some level they always hoped that it you changed.

[10:24] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[10:25] Peter Kim: Yeah. I mean, even though like Michael and I were together for ten years before we got married, and he was a phase. He was welcome though, to like family events, he was welcome to Christmas. He got Christmas gifts. Like it was he was definitely, you know, welcomed.

[10:43] Tonya Pinkins: And but it was this thing around marriage.

[10:46] Peter Kim: And I think for them being so Catholic, um, for them, marriage is a sacrament. It's not just like a civil union. There's a whole other component to it.

[10:56] Tonya Pinkins: And um, which I I totally get, you know, but we didn't get married in a church. We did not want that. We weren't asking for the sacrament of marriage.

[11:04] Peter Kim: Right, right.

[11:05] Tonya Pinkins: The legal rights. It's weird to think of it as a sacrament when at the time of its sort of invention, women and children wore property. You know, you're having a sacrament with something that's considered some property.

[11:13] Peter Kim: Interesting.

[11:13] Tonya Pinkins: You know, you're having a sacrament with something that's considered some property.

[11:17] Peter Kim: Interesting.

[11:18] Tonya Pinkins: I never thought of it that way.

[11:19] Peter Kim: No.

[11:20] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[11:20] Peter Kim: No agency. That property doesn't really have agency in this process.

[11:24] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[11:24] Peter Kim: So, you know, that hypocrisy of Catholicism.

[11:27] Tonya Pinkins: But the call of Catholicism, you yeah, I think of myself as a recovering Catholic, and I see how it seeps into so many ways I look at things, you know, still having to resist those just assumptions that the world works in a certain way that it doesn't.

[11:42] Peter Kim: Yeah. I mean, I I will say, even like this podcast with you and talking about this, this is like a two-decade journey for myself. I mean, uh, I've been out to myself and I have never hid my sexuality in professionally or anything, but it was certainly something that I kept in mind, you know, uh, especially as the conversation around representation of um the LGBTQ community has shifted so much that um I feel more comfortable talking about it. And it was really it wasn't until I got married um five years ago, where it all sort of I don't know, I have to give credit to my therapist because uh this is a therapist I've been seeing for like 20 years, and um she helped me come out to my parents, um and she's phenomenal. And it was actually her idea for me to get married.

[12:34] Tonya Pinkins: Wow, because she felt like it would be a really wonderful way to mare marry, ha ha ha. It would be a great way to um I was real good at compartmentalizing my life, and it would be a way to synthesize all of those things, which she was a hundred percent right.

[12:52] Peter Kim: So since being married five years ago, I feel I feel different about my own sexuality and talking about it, my own comfort level. Um I think it's not a surprise that um my career has shifted in that time period.

[13:11] Peter Kim: How so?

[13:12] Peter Kim: Well, so you know, I I've been in this biz acting professionally for actually almost 30 years now.

[13:18] Tonya Pinkins: Wow, yeah.

[13:21] Peter Kim: Started real young in the fetus.

[13:24] Peter Kim: Um, so I think on some level I wasn't kind of ready for the spotlight, if you will.

[13:34] Peter Kim: Um and then definitely I stepped away from the biz, like I took a heart out about five years ago.

[13:44] Peter Kim: Um, and actually at that point that it was really interesting, it kind of opened up all these other doors.

[13:54] Peter Kim: Um, like literally the day after I told my manager and my agents that I was stepping away, I got a call from my friend Susie Aigans, who's a really wonderful director who happened to be teaching at Princeton at the time in the theater department, and she called me and was like, Hey, would you want to direct a show on campus?

[14:12] Peter Kim: And I was like, Oh, I've never really directed it before.

[14:16] Peter Kim: But um I met with her and then um she convinced me somehow and I interviewed for the job and I got it.

[14:23] Peter Kim: And that literally that you still lecture at Princeton.

[14:26] Peter Kim: I do, yeah.

[14:27] Peter Kim: So that was four years ago where I directed a show.

[14:30] Peter Kim: Um and then subsequently I've been um I was brought on to teach acting there.

[14:36] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[14:36] Peter Kim: So that was like a real opening to this other creative path for me, um, in terms of directing and teaching.

[14:43] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[14:43] Peter Kim: And um before that, a few years before that, I was producing with Natco, the National Asian American Theater Company.

[14:50] Tonya Pinkins: Um, yeah, me is the best.

[14:53] Tonya Pinkins: Um Do you have any challenges with your acting students of just respect for you because you're an Asian person?

[14:59] Peter Kim: Because I certainly do as a black act black teacher.

[15:01] Tonya Pinkins: Really?

[15:02] Peter Kim: Yes.

[15:02] Tonya Pinkins: Really?

[15:03] Peter Kim: I think I'm giving up teaching all these little white children.

[15:06] Tonya Pinkins: Whoa, fascinating.

[15:07] Peter Kim: Yeah.

[15:08] Tonya Pinkins: Like, yeah.

[15:08] Peter Kim: Are you teaching at the conservatory?

[15:10] Tonya Pinkins: You're teaching at the conservatory.

[15:12] Peter Kim: Yeah.

[15:12] Tonya Pinkins: See, I teach so at Princeton, you can't major in theater.

[15:16] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[15:16] Peter Kim: Um so people have had to have chosen this class.

[15:20] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, and a lot of and I teach an intro to acting course.

[15:23] Tonya Pinkins: So it's a it's it's some for many of them, and I'm really this is really great about the program.

[15:29] Tonya Pinkins: They've never done acting before.

[15:31] Tonya Pinkins: They've they have no idea about theater.

[15:33] Tonya Pinkins: So it's a real first time experience.

[15:35] Peter Kim: Okay.

[15:36] Peter Kim: So um I find that um the challenge with that is that I'm I'm up like, you know, we as performers, like we're expressive with our bodies, our voice, our feelings.

[15:48] Peter Kim: You know, we're part of that's part of our job to be connected to that stuff.

[15:51] Peter Kim: And for them, they've never really been asked to access those parts of themselves.

[15:56] Tonya Pinkins: So that is really the challenge.

[15:58] Peter Kim: Okay.

[15:58] Peter Kim: Um, and I think being um an Asian man, um, teaching the course, it actually has welcomed more students who typically don't feel welcome in the theater uh to take this class.

[16:10] Peter Kim: Because I I've had really, really diverse classes.

[16:13] Tonya Pinkins: That's wonderful.

[16:14] Tonya Pinkins: Um but can you talk more about what you were just saying?

[16:17] Tonya Pinkins: Because I think that is fascinating because I have I have I have not experienced that.

[16:22] Tonya Pinkins: I think that like it there's a sense for me that it doesn't matter that I have this career and that I have these awards and that I've done anything.

[16:30] Tonya Pinkins: I'm just not treated with any level of respect.

[16:36] Peter Kim: I'm just not.

[16:37] Peter Kim: I mean, certainly that's not every student.

[16:39] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[16:40] Peter Kim: But um, I remember one a student I had, this wasn't an NYU student, but going around and saying I was a misguided teacher, telling other teachers, even black teachers, that I was a misguided teacher because I made people feel things, you know, and she didn't think that theater should have people should actors shouldn't feel things and audiences shouldn't feel things, and that was very misguided of me.

[17:01] Tonya Pinkins: So I was like, oh, so that student is no longer an actor.

[17:05] Peter Kim: I mean it was a director.

[17:06] Tonya Pinkins: That's a directory.

[17:07] Peter Kim: I was gonna say that is definitely that was a director.

[17:11] Peter Kim: That is something a director would say.

[17:12] Tonya Pinkins: No offense to the directors, but like a bad director would say that.

[17:16] Peter Kim: You know, I'm sure she'll be very, very successful.

[17:22] Peter Kim: I even had some students uh I some of my bad reviews were um how punitive it uh was of me to have them read August Wilson monologues.

[17:32] Tonya Pinkins: So I'm like, okay.

[17:34] Tonya Pinkins: Interesting.

[17:35] Peter Kim: Yeah, yeah.

[17:36] Peter Kim: So I I'm like, hmm, I don't know.

[17:38] Peter Kim: I feel like I need some diversity in my classrooms, or I just I'm not willing to be in a classroom if it's not there'sn't some diversity.

[17:44] Tonya Pinkins: That's interesting because yeah, the classrooms that I'm in, fortunately, are quite diverse.

[17:49] Tonya Pinkins: I have not I have not had to teach a course where I am the only person of color in the room, which I would imagine would be tricky.

[17:57] Peter Kim: So I'm gonna out you in another way now.

[17:58] Tonya Pinkins: Oh boy.

[17:59] Peter Kim: Oh, are you ready?

[18:00] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, do it.

[18:01] Peter Kim: You are Korean.

[18:03] Tonya Pinkins: Does that mean South Korean?

[18:04] Peter Kim: Uh yes.

[18:05] Peter Kim: But you told me you are not into South Korean horror, and it is the moment of parasite.

[18:10] Tonya Pinkins: Come on, now how does this happen?

[18:12] Peter Kim: Well, okay.

[18:14] Peter Kim: So this is okay.

[18:16] Peter Kim: First of all, I think Parasite is a masterpiece.

[18:18] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[18:19] Peter Kim: It is a masterpiece.

[18:20] Peter Kim: But if you like, if you're like me and you're like a you know, obsessed with South Korean horror, you're like, it's a it's a masterpiece, but like that's just what South Koreans do.

[18:28] Tonya Pinkins: I mean, I'm not gonna disagree with you there.

[18:31] Peter Kim: Koreans don't play.

[18:32] Tonya Pinkins: Um but I I it's funny because you think it's a horror movie.

[18:37] Peter Kim: I I don't.

[18:38] Peter Kim: It isn't a horror movie.

[18:39] Tonya Pinkins: Okay, but Bang Jong Ho does make a lot of horror movies.

[18:41] Peter Kim: Yes, yes, motherfuckers.

[18:43] Peter Kim: Yes.

[18:43] Tonya Pinkins: But what I think about South Korean horror is that's what makes it exciting.

[18:49] Tonya Pinkins: It's not horror.

[18:49] Tonya Pinkins: There's these mixtures of genres.

[18:51] Tonya Pinkins: I always describe it as you could be singing a song, and then the next you're chopping up a baby and eating it.

[18:56] Tonya Pinkins: Then it's like some three stooges, and then you know, it becomes a mystery.

[19:01] Peter Kim: Yeah, yeah.

[19:02] Peter Kim: And that's they just mix every genre, and it's just okay, and it's interesting.

[19:07] Peter Kim: No Aristotelian story structure at all.

[19:10] Peter Kim: One of my favorites, you've got to watch this Bedevil, the Korean Bedeviled.

[19:14] Tonya Pinkins: I don't, I don't know it.

[19:15] Peter Kim: It's a fantastic movie that opens with a woman watching another woman get beat down by a bunch of men in a street.

[19:21] Peter Kim: And the woman falls on her car and is asking for help and she just turns her head, and then the police bring her in because they see her in the CCTV and ask her to identify the assailants.

[19:31] Peter Kim: She refuses.

[19:32] Peter Kim: She goes to work, slaps some people around, yeah, you know, denies this old woman housing, and that's our protagonist South Korean movie.

[19:42] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[19:42] Peter Kim: Yeah, yeah.

[19:44] Tonya Pinkins: I mean yes.

[19:48] Peter Kim: Sure.

[19:50] Peter Kim: I was like, yeah, that sounds about right.

[19:53] Peter Kim: Um you know, it's funny, my parents, um, they're not really into like movies or seeing things or like really anything except you know, church uh and golf.

[20:03] Peter Kim: Um but I spoke to my mom yesterday and she's like, oh, you know, me and dad, we went to go see Parasite.

[20:09] Peter Kim: I was like, great, what did you think?

[20:12] Peter Kim: And she said, it's it was it's very deep.

[20:17] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[20:19] Peter Kim: It was a very deep movie.

[20:19] Peter Kim: I was like, yes.

[20:20] Peter Kim: And she goes, you know, the rich people were kind of bad, but also the poor people were kind of bad too.

[20:29] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[20:31] Peter Kim: And I was like, Yeah.

[20:32] Peter Kim: Great.

[20:32] Tonya Pinkins: She's like, Yeah, we're all kind of bad.

[20:32] Peter Kim: Yeah.

[20:32] Tonya Pinkins: Kind of.

[20:37] Peter Kim: Yeah, we're all kind of bad.

[20:41] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[20:39] Peter Kim: Um, it's just funny to talk to them about art because I we never do, you know.

[20:45] Tonya Pinkins: And is it because, you know, they come from wherever they came from when you said they'd like what was the per the reason of their immigration?

[20:52] Peter Kim: Was it a good idea?

[20:53] Peter Kim: Well, you know, yeah, well, you know, in South Korea, um, when my par this is probably in the in the 60s in South in South Korea, but maybe even like earlier, maybe like late 50s.

[21:04] Peter Kim: Um, you know, my parents were born in 1940, 1941, and you know, Korea was like a third world country.

[21:11] Peter Kim: Yeah, I mean, there was no economy.

[21:12] Peter Kim: It was it was poor, poor, poor.

[21:16] Peter Kim: So they they my parents actually met in Germany.

[21:19] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, yeah.

[21:19] Peter Kim: There was this program between um South Korea and Germany.

[21:24] Peter Kim: Germany needed a workforce, so they brought people from South Korea to work.

[21:29] Tonya Pinkins: But was it like enslaved work, like really bad?

[21:32] Peter Kim: Well, the men were coal miners, so my dad was a coal miner, and my mom was a nurse.

[21:37] Peter Kim: Um, and she had to be educated already.

[21:40] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, yeah.

[21:41] Peter Kim: My mom, I think my mom was uh I believe my mom was a nurse already at that time, and my mom, um, you know, typically like my mom did not have to do this, but typically the nurses were the ones who were cleaning bodies at the morgue.

[21:53] Peter Kim: So they were doing grunt work, you know, dangerous grunt work.

[21:55] Peter Kim: Uh the men were doing dangerous mining.

[21:58] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, dangerous.

[21:59] Peter Kim: Um, but you know, they were able to make a good amount of money and then send it back home or like save it.

[22:05] Peter Kim: So my parents met in Germany, they got married in Germany, uh, and they had my si my oldest sister in Germany before coming to the States.

[22:14] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[22:15] Peter Kim: Yeah.

[22:15] Peter Kim: And uh it's crazy to think that their first language after Korean was German.

[22:19] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[22:20] Peter Kim: And then English.

[22:22] Peter Kim: Yeah.

[22:23] Peter Kim: Um, yeah, it's kind of crazy because when they came to the States in um the late six, I think it was '69.

[22:32] Peter Kim: Um, they lived in Park Slope.

[22:35] Peter Kim: And uh, because you know, Park Slope was not part of Mark Swap back then.

[22:39] Tonya Pinkins: And um, crazy enough, my husband and I moved into an apartment a few months ago in Park Slope, and I think we are like five blocks away from their first apartment.

[22:50] Peter Kim: Wow.

[22:50] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I know.

[22:52] Tonya Pinkins: It's it's kind of crazy to think it's yeah, yeah, it's coming around.

[22:56] Peter Kim: Yeah, small world that we are living in.

[22:58] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[22:58] Tonya Pinkins: Now wild goose streams.

[23:00] Peter Kim: Sure.

[23:00] Peter Kim: Play you did at the public, which I love.

[23:02] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, thank you so much.

[23:04] Peter Kim: Such a beautiful story.

[23:05] Tonya Pinkins: And were there a lot of um people of Asian descent working on that whole team?

[23:11] Peter Kim: Um yeah, you know, so the costume designer was Linda Cho.

[23:15] Peter Kim: She's Korean American as well.

[23:17] Peter Kim: Um Clint Ramos did love Clinton.

[23:19] Peter Kim: He's the best.

[23:20] Peter Kim: Um I yeah, and then the assistant director and assistant director uh Nana Dakin was was on board.

[23:29] Peter Kim: Um and Hansel Jong, of course, who wrote the play.

[23:33] Peter Kim: Um her brother actually wrote some of the music.

[23:37] Tonya Pinkins: Okay for I think he wrote one of the songs.

[23:40] Peter Kim: Um and then the cast was predominantly of Asian descent.

[23:47] Peter Kim: Uh it was very diverse cast regardless.

[23:50] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[23:50] Tonya Pinkins: I mean, I guess for me when you come and see something and you feel so moved, and then it's like, but I don't know, this could be like a misappropriation of the cult.

[23:57] Peter Kim: Sure.

[23:58] Peter Kim: I know it's not it's isn't it wasn't Korean though.

[24:00] Tonya Pinkins: It was it was a Korean Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[24:02] Peter Kim: Was that your experience?

[24:04] Tonya Pinkins: No, I loved it, and I and I but I always question when I love something from another culture of is this somebody's gaze on the culture?

[24:12] Peter Kim: Uh versus like I I remember I saw that play um pale something, the pale ale.

[24:18] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, pale ale.

[24:19] Peter Kim: Yeah, yeah, pale ale, I think.

[24:20] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I didn't like it.

[24:21] Peter Kim: But I was like asking South Asian people in the audience like is this like Resonating for you because it's not resonating with me.

[24:28] Tonya Pinkins: Right, right, right, right.

[24:30] Peter Kim: Interesting.

[24:31] Peter Kim: I mean, that's uh that's an interesting um observation of oneself.

[24:36] Peter Kim: Um I I feel like I feel like it was it was I know for a fact, like my cousin is uh is a is a goose dad like you know goose dad tell us what's a goose dad so the uh those are um Korean men who stay in Korea to work while they send money to uh their kids in usually in the United States.

[24:59] Peter Kim: So like the mom and the kid will go to the States so the kid can get an American education while the father stays in Korea to work to make the money and send it to them.

[25:08] Peter Kim: So you're living this like parallel existence, but not really together, and that is so common in Korean culture, especially and being Korean American, like I knew so many people who were kids of goose dads.

[25:25] Peter Kim: Like it was just so common that like the dad was in Korea and wasn't around.

[25:30] Tonya Pinkins: So it's um it's really it's really interesting.

[25:34] Tonya Pinkins: Um I feel like there are other cultures that have something similar, but it feels like West Indians that you know.

[25:41] Peter Kim: I think all of the sort of immigrants from South and Central America, right?

[25:44] Tonya Pinkins: But it doesn't just dads, it could be goose moms.

[25:46] Peter Kim: Yeah, yeah.

[25:47] Peter Kim: I think particularly with Korea, it's it's dads.

[25:51] Tonya Pinkins: How come you don't say no and me know that was my conversation with Peter Kim, star of hackers and the upcoming 40 year version.

[26:05] Peter Kim: Stay tuned for part two.