Catherine Haena Kim in ‘Company You Keep’ the latest Asian American TV series lead
In fourth grade, Catherine Haena Kim didn’t have the courage to audition for the female lead in her school’s production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
But her teachers saw something in her.
“My teachers actually gave me the part because whenever I would speak up, I was very lively and expressive,” says Kim. “When I did this piece, I honestly think it was one of the first times that I really saw myself and felt special in a way that I really didn’t have before.”
Kim’s teachers subverted a problem that frustrated many Asian Americans: they were praised as reliable, hard workers but not seen as leadership material.
Asian Americans have long been held back by prejudice rooted in stereotypes. Employers often portray Asians as passive, who lack gravitas or who don’t “culturally fit,” says Justin Zhu, co-founder of the advocacy group Stand with Asian Americans.
Kim is now enjoying the thrill and pressure of starring on a much bigger stage, which includes starring opposite Milo Ventimiglia in ABC’s The Company You Keep, which premieres Sunday.
Given Network TV’s long history of casting Asian actors as lead characters, an extraordinary number of new shows are making changes. Other recently aired series with Asian or Asian-American leads include Quantum Leap (Raymond Lee), Kung Fu (Olivia Liang), The Cleaning Lady (Élodie Yung), NCIS: Hawai’i (Vanessa Lachey ). and “Ghosts” (Utkarsh Ambudkar).
In 2019, after “Crazy Rich Asians” became a hit, things were looking promising, says Milton Liu, interim executive director of the Asian American Media Alliance. Six TV pilots were ordered that year with at least one Asian lead, but only one – “Sunnyside,” a sitcom starring Kal Penn – became a series. It was canceled after 11 episodes.
Liu says the current shows show things are “slowly improving.”
The executive producer of The Company You Keep, Jon M. Chu, who directed Crazy Rich Asians, suggested that Agent Emma Hill be an Asian with a Korean-American father and a Chinese-American mother.
Kim’s on-camera father (James Saito) is loosely inspired by former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, the first mainland Asian-American governor. Locke says there is an impact when you see Asians and Asian Americans taking charge on screen.
“Just seeing more Asian Americans in all walks of life — even if it’s fictional — is important because that can be [viewers’] only exposure to Asian Americans in roles they are not used to,” Locke says.
Kim still feels the insecurities of her fourth grader self at times.
“But I keep going because it’s all mixed up with that feeling that a little kid dreams of,” she says — of being seen and recognized as something special.