Daniel Dae Kim

Daniel Dae Kim
Kim on set of Hawaii Five-O in October 2013
Born	(1968-08-04) August 4, 1968 Busan, South Korea
Residence	Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, director, producer
Years active	1992–present
Agent	SidusHQ
Website	danieldaekim.com
Korean name
Hangul	김대현
Hanja	金大賢
Revised Romanization	Gim Dae-hyeon
McCune–Reischauer	Kim Taehyŏn

Daniel Dae Kim (born August 4, 1968) is a South Korean-born American actor, producer, and director. Kim is best known for his roles as Jin-Soo Kwon in Lost, Chin Ho Kelly in Hawaii Five-0, and Johnny Gat in the Saints Row series of video games. He also played a recurring role on Angel.

Early life

Kim was born in Busan, South Korea, and moved to the United States with his family when he was two years old. He is now a naturalized citizen of the United States. He grew up in Lehigh Valley, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Freedom High School and Haverford College. His theater major was completed at Bryn Mawr College. He graduated from NYU's Graduate Acting Program in 1996.

Career

On the cover of KoreAm, April 2010

After graduation, Kim made a name for himself playing numerous roles in a wide variety of television programs. He appeared in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as a treasury agent as well as episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Charmed, The Shield, Seinfeld, NYPD Blue and ER. He landed recurring roles on Angel, 24 and the short-lived Babylon 5 spin-off Crusade. He also portrayed Dr. Tsi Chou in a 2008 miniseries based on the acclaimed Michael Crichton novel The Andromeda Strain.

His film credits include a small part in Spider-Man 2 as a scientist working in Doctor Octavius' laboratory, and Crash, the 2005 Best Picture Academy Award winner. He also had minor roles in films such as The Jackal, For Love of the Game, Hulk and The Cave.

From 2004 to 2010, Kim served as a regular cast member on the massively successful ABC series Lost in which he played Jin-Soo Kwon, a lowly Korean fisherman-turned-hitman who crashes onto a mysterious island with his wife, Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim). Since the role required him to speak exclusively in Korean, Kim said he was forced to quickly relearn the language, which he had not spoken with any great frequency since high school. He would go on to play the character up until the 2010 series finale. Throughout the show's run, Kim, along with his fellow cast members, received numerous accolades, including a 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble. Kim was individually honored with an AZN Asian Excellence Award, a Multicultural Prism Award and a Vanguard Award from the Korean American Coalition, all for Outstanding Performance by an Actor. Kim was also named one of People Magazine's "Sexiest Men Alive" in 2005.

In February 2010, shortly after Lost's conclusion, it was announced that Kim would join the CBS reboot Hawaii Five-0 playing Chin Ho Kelly, the role originally made famous by actor Kam Fong. Kim was the first actor to be officially cast on the show. That series premiered on September 20, 2010 to strong ratings and solid critical acclaim. On March 13, 2014, CBS renewed the series for a fifth season.

Kim co-starred in The Divergent Series: Insurgent, the sequel to 2014's Divergent, playing Jack Kang, the leader of the Candor faction.

In addition to acting, Kim made his directorial debut with the Hawaii Five-0 Season 5 episode, "Kuka'awale"- Stakeout.

Other projects

Kim is the voice of the character Johnny Gat for THQ's Saints Row video game series. He also contributed his vocal likeness for 24: The Game in which he played his character from the show, Tom Baker. He provided the voice for Metron in the final two episodes of Justice League Unlimited.

In a return to his theater roots, Kim played the King of Siam in Rodgers & Hammerstein's The King and I from June 12–28, 2009 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England.

In January 2014, Kim signed with South Korean talent agency SidusHQ. He is currently repped in America by Agency for the Performing Arts and Anonymous Content

3AD

Kim has expanded his career to include producing. In January 2014, he signed a first look development deal with CBS Television Studios, the first of its kind with an Asian American actor. With his new production company, 3AD, he and his team are currently creating original content for both television and film.

Personal life

Though Kim continues to split his time between Los Angeles and New York, he spends the majority of his year in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he lives with his wife and two children. After first moving to Hawaii during the later seasons of Lost, Kim continued his residency after being cast in Hawaii Five-0. On May 17, 2014, he served as a speaker at the 2014 University of Hawaii commencement ceremony.

Besides acting, Kim has devoted much of his time to various charities. More recently, he served as Cultural Envoy and Member of the U.S. Presidential Delegation for the United States at the World Expo in Korea.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1992	American Shaolin	Gao
1997	Addicted to Love	Undergrad Assistant
1997	The Jackal	Akashi
1999	For Love of the Game	E.R. Doctor
2001	Looking for Bobby D	Timmy	Short film
2003	Cradle 2 the Grave	Visiting Expert
2003	Hulk	Aide
2003	Ride or Die	Miyako	Video
2003	Sin	Lakorn
2004	Spider-Man 2	Raymond
2004	Crash	Park
2005	The Cave	Alex Kim
2008	The Onion Movie	Ivy Leaguer
2011	Arena	Taiga	Video
2013	Linsanity	Narrator	Documentary
2015	The Divergent Series: Insurgent	Jack Kang

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1994	Law & Order	Harry Watanabe	Episode: "Golden Years"
1994	All-American Girl	Stan	Episode: "Ratting on Ruthie"
1995	All My Children	Dr. Kim	TV series
1997	Pacific Palisades	Kate's Attorney	Episode: "Sweet Revenge"
1997	Night Man	Roland Yates	Episode: "Pilot: Part 1"
1997	Beverly Hills, 90210	Dr. Sturla	Episode: "Forgive and Forget" Episode: "The Way We Weren't"
1997	NYPD Blue	Simon Lee	Episode: "It Takes a Village"
1998	The Pretender	Lenny Duc	Episode: "Collateral Damage"
1998	Seinfeld	Student No. 1	Episode: "The Burning"
1998	Brave New World	Ingram	TV movie
1998	Ally McBeal	Police Officer	Episode: "The Inmates"
1998	The Practice	Testifying Officer	Episode: "Axe Murderer"
1998	Party of Five	Ethan	Episode: "Opposites Distract"
1998	Fantasy Island		Episode: "Dreams"
1999	Crusade	Lt. John Matheson	13 episodes
1999	Walker, Texas Ranger	Kahn	Episode: "The Lynn Sisters"
2000	Star Trek: Voyager	Astronaut – Gotana-Retz	Episode: "Blink of an Eye"
2000	Murder, She Wrote: A Story to Die For	Everett Jang	TV movie
2001	Once and Again	Co-Worker No. 3	Episode: "Won't Someone Please Help George Bailey Tonight"
2001	Charmed	Yenlo	Episode: "Enter the Demon"
2001	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Special Agent Beckman	Episode: "Ellie"
2001–2003	Angel	Gavin Park	12 episodes
2002	Any Day Now	Mr. Chung	Episode: "Call Him Macaroni"
2003	Momentum	Agent Frears	TV movie
2003	Street Time	Vo Nguyen	Episode: "Born to Kill"
2003	Miss Match	Clifford Kim	4 episodes
2003–2004	24	Tom Baker	11 episodes
2003	ER	Ken Sung	3 episodes
2003–2004	Star Trek: Enterprise	Corporal Chang	Episode: "The Xindi" Episode: "Extinction" Episode: "Hatchery"
2004	Without a Trace	Mark Hiroshi	Episode: "Exposure"
2004	ER	Ken Sung	Episode: "Abby Normal"
2004	The Shield	Thomas Choi	Episode: "Riceburner"
2004–2010	Lost	Jin-Soo Kwon	114 episodes
2006	Avatar: The Last Airbender	General Fong (voice)	Episode: "The Avatar State"
2006	Justice League	Metron / Chinese Man (voice)	Episode: "Alive!" Episode: "Destroyer"
2007–2008	Lost: Missing Pieces	Jin-Soo Kwon	TV miniseries
2008	The Andromeda Strain	Dr. Tsi Chou	TV miniseries
2010–present	Hawaii Five-0	Chin Ho Kelly	Character
2011	G.I. Joe: Renegades	Teddy Lee (voice)	Episode: "The Anomaly"
2012–2014	The Legend of Korra	Hiroshi Sato (voice)	7 episodes
2012	NCIS: Los Angeles	Chin Ho Kelly	Episode: "Touch of Death"
2013	Hollywood Game Night	Himself	Episode: "The One With the Friends"
2015	Once Upon a Time	Drive-thru employee (voice)	Episode: "Darkness on the Edge of Town"

Video games

List of voice performances in video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2003	Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven	Rikimaru
2006	24: The Game	Agent Tom Baker
2006	Saints Row	Johnny Gat
2006	Scarface: The World Is Yours	Macau Fast Food manager
2007	Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth	General Fong
2008	Saints Row 2	Johnny Gat
2011	Saints Row: The Third	Johnny Gat
2013	Saints Row IV	Johnny Gat
2015	Saints Row: Gat out of Hell	Johnny Gat

External links

• Daniel Dae Kim at the Internet Movie Database
• Daniel Dae Kim interview with Patrol magazine