‘Butterfly’ Series: Daniel Dae Kim Says Violence, Espionage and Deceit Are Backdrop for Family Trauma

‘Butterfly’ Series: Daniel Dae Kim Says Violence, Espionage and Deceit Are Backdrop for Family Trauma

In the first 15 minutes of Butterfly, viewers would be within their rights to think the new South Korea-based spy thriller is a James Bond-esque high-octane show. But Daniel Dae Kim, star and executive producer of the Prime Video series, says there are many more layers to peel away as viewers invest themselves in all six episodes (all of which released on Wednesday).

From the pages of a graphic novel by Arash Amel, Kim plays former CIA operative David Jung, who several years ago broke away from the agency and started a rogue company with fellow former American spy Juno (played by Piper Perabo). But something went terribly wrong when, about nine years ago, David was out on a mission ordered by Juno: and he and his team were ambushed. The whole team was killed, leaving David as the lone survivor. He played dead to make it out, and then went off the spy grid. That is, until now.

With a new family, David discovers that Juno’s most deadly assassin is his oldest daughter, Rebecca, who he left behind at the age of 14 believing that his disappearance would keep her safe. But Rebecca (played by Reina Hardesty) grows up to become a seemingly heartless killer as a residual effect of David’s disappearance. David decides to come out of hiding in hopes of saving his daughter from the merciless espionage game that Juno has plunged her into, and when Juno discovers David is alive, she sends his daughter and a team of professional killers out to kill him. The over-arching question of hte series becomes one about redemption.

The Hollywood Reporter recently caught up with Kim to discuss what drew him to Butterfly, as well as the wave of Korean content that is currently sweeping the entertainment industry how this action-packed, emotional series is his love letter to Korea.

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You recently attended San Diego Comic Con, but for those who are not familiar with the Butterfly graphic novel (created by Arash Amel), what would you tell them about this series?

If you are a fan of the spy action-adventure genre, you’re going to feel right at home. But if you’re a fan of relationship dramas, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the depth of character and relationships. Because to us, the action can only have stakes and meaning if they come from an emotional place; that you care about these characters. We work really hard to try to infuse our show with both of those things.

And if you have any interest in Korea, our show is a love letter to Korea. We shot in dozens of locations all throughout South Korea. We put in a healthy dose of culture as I know it as a Korean American.

After being nominated for a Tony Award as the first Asian nominee in the leading male category (for the Broadway production of Yellow Face, where Kim portrays the show’s playwright David Henry Hwang), why was now the right time to release this series?

Butterfly means a lot to me because I am one of the executive producers and also the lead. I was involved with the show since its creation. And when you’re involved from the beginning, you’re able to develop the story and go through every bit of the process, including casting, and it takes a little bit of your heart with it. My heart is in this project, so I’m very hopeful that people like it.

How do you mix your love for acting on film and television with that of your love for the stage? I ask that with the acknowledgment of your recent Tony nomination. Do those three realms mix?

I think they do. Obviously they’re very different in terms of acting technique, but the one thing they have in common is that, as an actor, you can traverse media from film to TV to stage, and then go where the best stories are. Every actor says they want to go to where the best scripts and the best characters are. Well, there’s no shortage of them in any medium, and so I’m lucky that I get to go back and forth. I started my career on stage. So to be able to go back and work on projects in New York is always something special.

Were you born in New York?

No, I was born in Korea. I was raised in New York and outside of Philadelphia. I did my graduate school in New York for acting, and stayed there working as an actor for many years. All of my training is on classical stage; I was doing a lot of Shakespeare, [Anton Pavlovich] Chekhov and some experimental theater. When I think about great acting, I always think about the stage first.

America is having a love affair with the television and film content coming out of South Korea right now. There’s Squid Game, My Name, Bloodhounds and countless other hot IPs in the U.S. market. How does Butterfly fit into that wave?

I think the answer is in your question. There has never been a greater acceptance for Korean content than right now. It started maybe 10 or 15 years ago, which is why I started wanting to bring Korean dramas to the U.S. That’s why I was interested in bringing the Good Doctor from Korea to America. I thought there was an opportunity to introduce Korean storytelling to American creators. That was a bridge process, because at that time America wasn’t as ready to read Korean or watch Korean dramas straight from the source. It has changed now though, and I’m so happy to see the success of movies like Parasite and shows like Squid Game. Now we’re hitting the next step in the evolution where Korean Americans are starting to get into the process of telling their stories, because we’re uniquely suited to tell stories from both America and Korea. That’s what Butterfly is — a story about Korean Americans. We can be the bridge between Korea and America and, at the same time, tell our own individual stories. I’m so glad we’re finally at a place in America where these kinds of stories can be told.

I also think both cultures have an eye for the dramatic. The cinematic and storytelling traditions are similar in certain ways. And what Korea did was expand the ways we tell stories. When Park Chan-wook brought over Old Boy, that was a storytelling style that we hadn’t really seen before, and we are always looking for something that’s unique and new. There are so many Korean filmmakers who are visionary; Bong Joon ho (director of Parasite) among them as well. They address similar themes and issues that we’ve seen in American entertainment, but through a slightly different perspective, and there’s always room for that. I think it applies to K-Pop and K-Beauty as well, pushing the envelope of technology, style, all in very familiar forms. Everyone uses makeup and listens to music, but this is something unique. I love that Butterfly represents a stage in that evolution.

Diving into Butterfly, did David always have an inkling that Juno was trying to take him out? And what reason would he think Juno would have for wanting him gone? Why did he decide to go underground for nine years?

(Laughs.) I think he knew that his life was in danger. He knew that Juno was not his friend any longer. So the question really was: What would he risk by coming out of hiding, and how much would Juno have a role in trying to stop him? He finds out all those answers pretty quickly.

Why did David decide to leave Caddis, which appears to be a very successful rogue espionage agency formed by the two former CIA members (David and Juno, respectively)?

So many times when you start a partnership, people grow in different ways, whether it’s a marriage or a business relationship. If you look at Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, famously those two were both visionaries, but they had different ideas of what the company [Apple] should be. That’s what happened between Juno and David. I think David realized that the stakes and consequences of the work he was doing were incredibly high and dangerous. He felt like he had no choice but to exit.

If David hadn’t found out that his oldest daughter, Rebecca, had become this fierce and deadly assassin, do you think David would have remained comfortable staying hidden with his new family?

I think he would have tried. He was trying to forget his past and leave it behind hm. But the fact that his daughter was following in his footsteps through the family business was a bridge too far, especially under the tutelage of someone like Juno.

In her own way, does Juno love Rebecca, too?

I think she does. Relationships only work when there’s some form of love felt by all of the characters. Their emotional lives are intertwined; so if you don’t have that, the story becomes less interesting. The fact that Rebecca is torn between one true parent and a parent figure is the heart of the conflict in this show.

The are a lot of intense action scenes in this series. Let’s talk a little bit about the rigors of preparing to film what seems to be some quite dangerous hand-to-hand action sequences.

I’ve done action for most of my life. I’ve been athletic down to when I was a kid. I took martial arts and played football and tennis, lots of different sports. I consider myself fortunate that even after 30 years in the business I’m still able to do action, and I love it. I’ll do as much as the insurance companies will let me do (laughs), and I hope I can continue to do so. There really was only one stunt in the show that they wouldn’t let me do that I can think of. Everything else was me. It activates me as an actor, and it’s part of David’s character as well.

Tell us a bit more about your production company, 3AD. This is not your first project.

My company has been in existence since the end of 2013. The first long-running show we were a part of was The Good Doctor, and that ran on ABC for seven seasons. I brought that over from Korea, because it was a Korean drama and I thought it would make a good U.S. show. So I was able to remake it with one of my partners. Since then, we’ve produced a number of different things. We did a documentary that was on the Oscar’s shortlist called Badass. We are working on stage projects, along with an Audible project that is coming out next season. We have dozens of projects in development and are actively developing a few different films, nothing I can announce at the moment. It’s a full-time job, this production company.

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Butterfly is now streaming all episodes on Prime Video.