John Cho in "The Exorcist." Photo copyright of FOX.
Happy New Year! I thought I would kick off 2022 with a new round of Sci-Fi Blast From The Past posts. To new readers, Blast From The Past interviews appeared in-print only and not on-line. Today, feature film and TV actor John Cho talks about working on the FOX TV series The Exorcist. Enjoy!
For Father Tomas Ortega and Father Marcus Keane, season two of FOX’s The Exorcist starts out as just another day on the job for them. The two priests are in rural Montana and caught up in a high-speed chase with the local authorities after abducting a troubled young woman from whom they are trying to exorcise a demonic presence. Meanwhile, on a tiny Pacific Northwest island, Andrew Kim is beginning his day on a decidedly different note. A widower, he is finishing up making lunches for the foster children he cares for, and sending four of them off to school, while his fifth and youngest charge, Grace, opts as usual to stay home with him. Everything looks very homey and normal, but it always does before evil sinks its filthy claws in and takes hold. For veteran feature film and TV actor John Cho, who plays Andrew, this is all brand new storytelling territory, the exploration of which he is thoroughly relishing.
“Andy is a man who’s grieving the loss of his wife and also trying to keep together the foster family that the two of them created, but then supernatural forces start to tear that family apart,” says Cho. “All of that has been incredibly interesting to play. At the moment [mid-September] we’re starting work on the second half of the season. The first half of season two is about establishing from my character’s vantage point what’s at stake for this family, and now we’re starting to break that family apart. I have to be totally honest and tell you that I wasn’t sure what to expect with The Exorcist. I was very curious about the genre and hadn’t had too much experience in it, but it has led me down some acting roads that I’m having a great deal of fun delving into.
“I’m trying to talk without revealing spoilers, but this role is proving hugely satisfying for me to play as an actor, and our writers have given me such great material to work with. We’ve established these amazing onscreen relationships between Andy and the other characters, and acting-wise there’s a tremendous sense of payoff when such real and feeling relationships are threatened.”
In The Exorcist’s season two opener Janus, Andrew receives a visit from Rose (Li Jun Li), a social worker with whom Andy shares a personal history and who has come to the island to conduct a wellness check on his foster children. Later that same afternoon while walking home from school through the woods, the four teens stop at a ramshackle house where “The Island Witch” supposedly once lived. In the dead of night, one of the children, Caleb (Hunter Dillon), returns to that house on a dare, having spent time earlier that evening listening to a record backwards. In the 1980s and 1990s, some Christian groups believed that this practice of “backmasking” was used to conceal and convey Satanic messages. Coincidence or not, these events are the prelude to darkness descending on the Kim household.
“The show’s season opener turned out to be kind of a second pilot in that we were introducing a number of new characters,” notes Cho. “So while our first week of shooting was, I think, ultimately fulfilling, it was also challenging because we were trying to create a family that felt real right off the bat, even though we as actors had only recently met one another. I haven’t seen this episode yet, but I felt good about the work we did, and just really wanted viewers to believe in and feel for that family, otherwise I didn’t think anyone would care as they watched that family being torn asunder.
“As for Andy, he’s one of the most layered characters I’ve ever played insofar as his backstory and everything he’s had to deal with. This man has so many loving relationships in life, which, of course, provides the ideal fodder for the demons. It’s also part of what makes him such a super multidimensional character, and I’ve been delighted to play all the different sides of him. Here’s someone who is trying his best to keep those people most precious to him safe, and, tragically, he’s failing.”
Being the father of two, a boy and a girl, Cho knows something about being a parent and has enjoyed seeing his art imitate his life when portraying Andrew Kim. “One of my favorite scenes so far from the show is in the season opener where the whole family is together at the dinner table,” he says. “As a dad in real life, I was so happy to be able to bring some of my experiences I’ve had as a parent to the work. As an actor, it was something new to me and made me feel not only like I was making a meaningful contribution to the scene, but also helping make it a bit more authentic.
“Something else I’ve really appreciated when it comes to playing this character is the casting of Li Jun Li as Rose. Our two characters have a very interesting, deep relationship, which for me has been extra special because I almost never get paired onscreen with an Asian woman. I’ve talked about this before, but I just feel like there’s this strange thought out there that in order to find love, Asian men must sometimes ‘run away’ from their Asian heritage because the culture can keep them from romance and love. It’s only a little thing, but it makes my work on The Exorcist all the more exciting for me,” he enthuses.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Cho was six years old when he immigrated to Los Angeles, California where his father was a minister. He began to express his artistic side at an early age, but it took him a while to figure out how to turn his passion into a career. “I drew when I was a child and loved books, and like a lot of children, I wondered what sort of job I could do that would allow me to keep drawing pictures and reading books,” recalls the actor.
“I eventually went to college, still not knowing what I was going to do, and then just kind of fell into acting. I was actually cast in a professional play while I was in college, and the only reason I was cast was that the Berkeley Repertory Theater Company rented out a campus facility, and part of the deal was that they had to use some of the students in its productions. So I was one of those students, and I consider it my big break because, first off, I got paid, but more importantly, this play also featured several Asian American actors. Frankly, it had never entered my mind to become an actor. I didn’t know any actors, and didn’t even know such a career was possible, but then I met this whole bunch of cool adults who were working in the business. Suddenly, it [acting] was tangible. I could feel it and see it, and for me that was my break, because it was a mental break and one that showed me that this path was possible.”
A very recognizable face to moviegoers, Cho’s feature film credits include American Pie, American Pie 2, Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Identity Thief and Gemini. On TV, his other work includes Boston Common, Charmed, House, Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Flashforward and Selfie. Most genre fans will know also him as Police Officer Andy Brooks from FOX’s Sleepy Hollow, and Hikaru Sulu from J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot film franchise.
“On Sleepy Hollow, most of my scenes were with Nikki [Nicole Beharie, who played Abbie Mills], and I really loved working with her,” he says. “She’s an extremely talented actress, and especially for me, having played a character in the show that popped in and out of the story, she kept me grounded as an actor. It’s a very particular satisfaction to find an ally in a cast, and someone who you can not only get down in the trenches with, but is going to keep you honest in the scenes, too. That’s Nikki, and she’s a very kind person, too. It was really cool production as well as great idea, and Tom Mison [Ichabod Crane] was fantastic, but my relationship with Nikki is what stands out most for me from working on the show.
“As for Star Trek, and I’ve said this before, that was a project that made me excited to be an actor again. Once you become a professional and then buy a house, have a mortgage, start a family, etc., it becomes tricky to continue having fun as an actor. You have to watch out, because all of a sudden it can become just a job, but with Star Trek, it was so much fun pretending to be on a spaceship and living out that childhood fantasy. Again, it revitalized my interest in acting and made me remember, ‘Yes, that childlike act of pretending is a big part of what this is all about.’”
Steve Eramo
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