(ABC/Brian Bowen Smith)Catherine Haena Kim, costar of the new ABC spy drama The Company You Keep (Sundays at 10pm ET/PT on ABC), discusses acting and growing up with immigrant parents while answering our “5 Questions.”
1. How did you get into acting?
I was in fourth grade, and we were doing a kids’ version of The Tempest. Everyone wanted to play the princess Miranda. And I really, really wanted to audition for the part, but I was very shy growing up and I just couldn’t muster the courage. My teachers gave me the part. They said that whenever I spoke out, I was very animated and super expressive. I think because I had immigrant parents who were always working, it was the first moment where I actually felt seen and special in a way that I really can remember from childhood. Not that my parents didn’t show me in all their different ways how much they loved me, but I felt really seen. They told me, “As long as you go to college, you can do whatever you want.”
2. What did you go to college for?
I tried to study business and French. By the time I had to declare a major, I had more credits in drama than my two majors combined. So I ended up actually majoring in psychology and minoring in drama, and taking every performance elective I could possibly take.
3. What were your favorite shows growing up?
I remember watching Mr. Rogers and 90210. I think I must have been in second or third grade, and it felt so juicy to watch these high school kids. I would sneak away with my friends and watch it.
4. Did you have any memorable jobs before becoming an actor?
A month before we came back into production I was in Hollywood and I passed by the bar I used to work at when I first moved to L.A. I must have been maybe 24 at the time. I remember I would be cleaning that bar until 3, 4 in the morning after an exhausting night serving people, and I would have to wake up on maybe three hours of sleep after I tried to prep an audition after I got home, and just be so exhausted, and be thinking about moments like this. As much as it’s such hard work, it’s honestly such a surreal feeling, and I’m trying to relish in all of it because I think 24-year-old me would be so excited.
5. Can you tell us about a time when you were starstruck?
I was somehow lucky enough to book my first movie that I ever auditioned for. It was for this romcom called Ghost of Girlfriends Past, and I got to play one of Matthew McConaughey’s three present-day girlfriends. First of all, I was 22, 23? I didn’t want to be the idiot 22-year-old who didn’t know anything, so I read a book called The Camera Smart Actor, just so I knew what everybody’s job was on set. I get on set, and Matthew McConaughey just has such gravitas. I mean, you see him, and he is a movie star, and it was definitely humbling. He let me ask him a million questions, and take a million photos with him. But that’s the first moment I saw him.
