KI HONG

Ki Hong Lee is a Korean American actor currently residing in Los Angeles. Upon graduating college, he served as an indentured servant at his parents’ restaurant while pursuing a career as an actor. After landing several roles on shows like Victorious, The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Modern Family, he was lucky enough to book his first big television series, The Nine Lives of Chloe King, premiering June 14 (tomorrow) on ABC Family. When not on set, he likes to play pickup basketball with little kids twice his size so he can feel like Michael Jordan. He doesn’t like long walks on the beach and prefers to sit at home watching movies all day. Here, Ki Hong blogs about what he learned as a first-time regular on a TV series.

My phone rings, I pick it up right away because I’ve been waiting the whole day for this call.

“Hello?”
“Hi, Ki Hong, it’s Dan (the Executive Producer of our show).”
“Hey Dan”
“Have you heard, we’ve been picked up! Are you ready to star in a T.V. show?”

Just like that I’m going to photo shoots, meeting with writers, and filming a freakin’ television show. Even to this day, I can’t describe how lucky I feel.

It started with an audition, then a callback, a producer’s session, a work session, a test, shooting the pilot, waiting two months, and a lot of hard work and luck to get that phone call.

And here I am…eight episodes in, with two more to shoot, for this awesome new show called The Nine Lives of Chloe King.

One of the first memories of my cast after the pilot got picked up to series is of the first photo shoot we all did together. I remember arriving at the location and noticing that everyone was already mingling and getting ready with hair and make up. I was actually extremely nervous to see them again. It wasn’t like I had formed true friendships during the pilot, but we weren’t exactly strangers either. The girls all look beautiful and the guys look like models. Now – I’m not a short guy. I’m 5’11’’ and when I’m with my friends, I’m on the tall side. But next to these hunky white dudes, I look short and puny. This makes me feel out of place and self-conscious. Not to mention the fact that everyone in the cast is fun and outgoing. Put me in a room full of my friends – and I’m the most outgoing person there. But put me in a room full of my cast mates and I seem like the reserved one.

Finally – the photo session is over and I go home. The next day, I have a meeting with the writers. Hopefully I can try to make more of an impression with them.

The following day, I arrive at the studio and I enter a room where there are literally ten people working at one desk with the Executive Producer. I take a look around and the walls are covered with story lines and outlines of every episode. We start talking and I tell them where I grew up, my college experience, what things I’m passionate about, etc. I felt so at ease talking with these people that I even ended up telling them about LiNK (Liberty in North Korea). They all seemed to be accepting and even the Executive Producer says that maybe I can use the show to promote the organization.

As the conversation went on and I started getting more comfortable talking with them, I wanted to bring up a concern I had about my character being just a “sidekick” on the show. So I asked the writers for some assurance that this would not be the case. To my relief, one of the writers explained, “Absolutely not, your character has a lot of heart, don’t worry.” Awesome!, that was exactly what I wanted to hear. Unfortunately, immediately following, the Executive Producer jokingly stated: “I like how you’re coming in here and demanding stuff for your character even when we haven’t filmed anything yet”. It was a joke, but I couldn’t help feeling that there was some truth involved. I felt extremely awkward and somewhat sorry that I had even brought it up. I started to think, “Did I overstep my bounds, and did I insult them?” I nervously laughed it off with everyone else, but secretly hoped that I didn’t offend any of them.

I walked out of the meeting and right into one of the assistant directors of the show. He and I hit it off while shooting the pilot and he became my go to guy if I had any problems on set. He showed me where the dressing rooms were, the green room, and lastly the whole set. At the end of the tour I asked him if he had any advice for a newbie like me. He told me, “You should talk to the dialogue coach, Eva, she’s great. She’ll help you with whatever you need and she’ll be a great person to connect with”. Following his advice, I was determined to track down Eva.

Finally, the first day of shooting arrived. I did my first scene without really messing up any of my lines, so I thought I was having a great day. That is, until Eva stepped in and said, “Hey Ki Hong, are you visualizing what you’re saying, sometimes you seem like you’re just saying the lines”. I thought about that for a moment and realized she was right. I focused too much on saying my lines perfectly and making sure my face didn’t look funny that I had completely forgotten to be in the moment. I tried to do the next scene with that in mind, but I became paranoid that my acting looked forced and fake. However, Eva explained that I had to trust the director and that he wouldn’t move on until they got what they needed from my performance.

But this “trusting the director” concept was hard for me at that time, and I had one particular issue I was stressing out about – my eyes. Not only can’t you see my eyes when I’m smiling, but also sometimes when I’m acting. I know this because I took an on-camera class and when they played my scenes back, I couldn’t see my eyes. This was something that I thought the director should know so I talked to Eva and confided in her. She assured me that I was “beautiful in everyway” (I love this woman), and that it wasn’t a problem to let the director know. She explained, the more you ask questions, the better your performance will be. So I went to the director and told him and he assured me that it would not be a problem. Just talking to the director and telling him about my issue made me feel a lot better. I realized that day that whatever problems I might have while filming – I should never be afraid to ask. Just ask – it never hurts.

I learned a lot during my first week of production. For example, you can arrive early, but don’t arrive too early. By that I mean if you have a 6am call don’t come at 5:30am expecting people to be there to open your dressing room for you. They won’t be and you’ll be freezing your ass off in the car waiting. But then again, arriving super early beats being even a minute late. Also, always have a smile on your face when you come into work. No one likes a bad attitude. Making a television show is a collaborative process and if one link in the chain is out of sync, it causes large ripples. One time I went into a costume fitting feeling under the weather and not having the best day. And as a result, the producers approved none of the costumes I tried on that day because it looked like I was frowning in all the pictures the wardrobe people took of me. I honestly don’t remember not smiling in the pictures, but I had to get fitted again and the costume department made it a point to remind me to smile the next time.

I also remember filming one day on the street just outside the studio. I was prepared, but for some reason, I kept forgetting my lines. I realized I could not walk and talk at the same time. You may laugh – but try it with a camera in your face and dozens of people waiting around and watching your performance. Take after take I would blank at this one stupid line. It was so bad that in the middle of it, the writer actually came up to me and told me they had changed one of the lines. “Great”, I thought, “they’re changing it because they think I can’t say it as written”.

After about a million takes, I was so frustrated, I cursed. Realizing too late that maybe I shouldn’t have said those words, I went back to my mark hoping that I could get the words out this time. Just then, the director runs out from behind the monitors and comes directly to me. A flurry of extremely bad thoughts came into my mind, from “Oh God, he’s going to give me a lecture” to “I’m freakin’ fired”. Much to my surprise, he runs up to me and gives me a hug. I was shocked and relieved – “Wow, there’s a lot of love on this set”. I guess that’s just what I needed because I got it down in the next couple of takes.

Eva and I worked very hard on my acting in the subsequent weeks. She taught me everything from the basics, like how to hit my mark, where to look on camera, to when to take a bathroom break, and making sure to hang up my costume at the end of the day. She also became my source of inspiration and motivation when I came down on myself on my bad days. But I eventually got into what my coach called, “ease and flow” and came to a point where things felt natural and easy.

It has taken me about two months of filming to feel comfortable with acting in front of the camera. But I’m also still trying to learn as much as I can. I ask the director of photography and directors what they look for when they watch a particular scene, I ask the camera operators how they set up different shots and angles, and I even ask the craft services how and where they get our food. I feel like working on this set has been a boot camp on how to make a television show and I’m extremely grateful for the experience. I feel blessed and honored to be working with such wonderful actors and crew members. Everyone tells me how spoiled I am to be on my first television show with such great people and I’m shocked when I hear horror stories from other sets. Hopefully it stays like this for many seasons to come.