Jacquelin of All Trades
Jacqueline Kim discusses her role as mentor and mother Lao Ma in the Xena: Warrior Princess two parter The Debt. Interview by K. Stoddard Hayes.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 10
When Korean-American actress Jacqueline Kim was offered the role of Xena’s mentor Lao Ma, she had very definite ideas about how she wanted to play the role, ideas which didn’t always coincide with the initial expectations of the production staff.
“When I first read the script,” she recalls, “I sensed very clearly that they wanted a character who would be really close to Xena - close spiritually but also close romantically. R.J. [Stewart] - who I think is a lovely writer - and I had a conversation right away because there were some segments where they were dancing together and doing all kinds of stuff that I thought were not as subtle as they could be. The thing that struck me about Lao Ma the most, and the thing that I loved about her, was that she was sort of a neutral voice. She wasn’t one of those people who would ever be commanding, but she might be like the voice that, if you’re quiet enough, you can hear.”
Playing an Asian character for US television inevitably raises certain political issues, which Kim addresses head on. “Sometimes when you play an Asian-American role it can be written in a way that is full of assumptions. Particularly with Lao Ma everyone assumes that this woman is always wise and just willing to suffer. That image is just an old one for me. It’s not one I really relate to, so I try to spice it up. I wanted her to have some passion.
“I also wouldn’t do an Oriental accent,” she remarks. “I thought that was absolutely wrong for the part, but I think they expected me to. We got to the table reading and one of the actors said, ‘Why isn’t she doing an accent?’ And the director said ‘She just got off the plane. She’s just reading through it.' I said, ‘Okay, we need to talk about this.’”
Kim affirms that she has nothing against doing a dialect or an accent, as long as it's genuine. For her role in the film Brokedown Palace, she spent months studying Thai language and the gestures and dress of Thai women, and even travelled to Thailand to make her portrayal of a Thai woman absolutely authentic. “An actor loves to jump on that stuff,” she says, “But an Asian actor being asked to do a general exotic accent is a very 1950s view of what is Asian. The accent would usually be done by white actors trying to pretend to sound how they thought we might sound. It’s uninteresting; it’s been done before. And I thought Lao Ma was supposed to be somebody who had an impact on Xena’s life.”
Like most actors who have guest starred on Xena or Hercules, Kim enjoyed her time on the set. “This crew was used to moving really fast and communicating pretty well,” she says, comparing the New Zealand production crew to Hollywood crews she has worked with. “You're in one of the most beautiful parts of the world so people are happier, there’s more of a community. There’s a definite fun feeling about it. And Lucy [Lawless] kind of sets the tone. She’s so no frills; she’s so unpretentious. I think she sets a really good tone for everybody else to just enjoy the work.”
Kim recently finished shooting a very different kind of story, The Hollywood Sign, a film in which she co-stars with Burt Reynolds, Rod Steiger and Tom Berenger. She describes it as “an Elmore Leonard-like piece, a heightened farce about three out-of-work actors getting the chance to give the performance of their lives.
“It’s always interesting to do a movie about acting or about what it’s like to try to survive, because there are immediate parallels to your own life,” she says. “I play an uncompromising screenwriter who won't change the end of her movie and therefore can’t get work for seven years. And that’s kind of close to certain circumstances in my own life. I’ve definitely turned down a lot of opportunities for certain kinds of work so that I could stay ahead with the kind of work that I care about.”
Kim’s training and early work as an actor was chiefly theatrical, and she still describes herself as a theatre actor, a perspective which influences her in choosing roles. “I’ve been trained with some of the greatest writers of all time, from Sophocles to Chekhov to Shakespeare. I don't say that to be lofty. I just mean, when you’ve got someone who tells great stories, and you have someone who’s writing words like the greatest poetry on the earth, it’s hard to compromise with certain kinds of writing which will usually pop up in Hollywood. And also, as a woman and a woman of colour, you've got all your separate issues. You’re looking for writers who are forward thinking in all of those categories. It’s not often that you find that.”
Kim has definite ambitions for her future, both in theatrical and film performances. On stage she would like to play Juliet before she gets too old. In film her aims are even higher. “I’d really love to carve the way in a wonderfully complex role for other actors of colour or other female actors so that people will expect it of them. Carving a path in a way that’s not necessarily didactic, like ‘Look at what Asian people can do!’” she says, putting on a goofy voice.
The actress cites the character of Erin Brokovich as an example of the kind of complex female role that is rare in Hollywood. “I’ve played Electra in the theatre,” she reveals. “I’ve played some great roles from Shakespeare, and that's always been about the acting. So I’d love to do that in film. I would love to do a role that revealed the complexity of how far an actor can go, and then have people go, ‘Wow! It's about the acting. And let’s just hire anything that moves if they’re a good actor.’”
It's a lofty ambition, but Kim is confident she can achieve it. “I think I will,” she says positively. “And if I don't, I’ll write it.”
It seems Jacqueline Kim already knows the Way.