Daniel Dae Kim jokingly laments taking the role of Jin on Lost, because he had to learn and continue to speak Korean. Now he's got an English speaking role in The Andromeda Strain, but it's all complicated medical jargon.
Daniel Dae Kim Drops Korean for The Andromeda Strain
"As long as it's English, I don't mind," he said. "I get to talk about Bucky Balls and I talk about Buckminster Fuller and his theories about quantum physics. For me to do it properly, I had to learn the theory, otherwise it feels false coming out of my mouth."
Even so, it was not like learning a whole other language. "I would say easier. They each have their challenges but it's easier."
Dae Kim read the original Michael Crichton book, but did not view the earlier film adaptation. "I started there for the research on the character. I wanted to get a feel for the tone that the author intended and I thought it helped with the performance. I have not seen that movie. The way I felt about it was we were adapting the original source material, so to see another adaptation, it's kind of like seeing a version of Shakespeare. You read the script of Shakespeare but you don't have to see everything to do your take."
On Lost, most of the work is practical, so being on a green screen stage was new for the actor. "It's great to be able to work in a controlled environment because on Lost we're always outdoors, we're always in the sun, we're always subject to the weather. Here it was all in the studio, nice and climate controlled, all the lighting set, so it was a nice switch."
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