“I’m done,” she tells the new issue of Entertainment Weekly. “We just finalized our agreement,” continues Heigl, 31, who played Dr. Izzie Stevens on the ABC medical drama for six seasons. “Everyone had been working really hard to find an amicable and gracious way of letting go and moving on. It’s sad but it’s what I wanted.”
She says she wants more time to focus on her 16-month-old daughter Naleigh, whom she adopted from South Korea with husband Josh Kelley last September.
“I started a family and it changed everything for me,” says Heigl, who took a three-month leave after welcoming her baby girl. “It changed my desire to work full-time.”
It looks like Daniel Dae Kim is staying in Hawaii after the final season of LOST is finished because he has been cast in a lead role for the CBS remake of Hawaii Five-O. Kim will play Detective Chin Ho Kelly, a role played in the original series by Kam Fong.
The new “Hawaii Five-0″ hails from hot feature writers and “Fringe” co-creators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and “CSI: NY” executive producer/co-showrunner Peter Lenkov.
Kim, who played Jin Kwon on “Lost” for its six-season run, is the first actor from the show’s core cast to book a new series project this pilot season as the ABC mystery drama heads to its May finale.
Getting key “LOST” players to do pilots this season is proving tricky as ABC’s drama doesn’t wrap its final season until April. In Kim’s case, it helped that both “Lost” and “Hawaii Five-O” are filming in Hawaii.
Comedian and actress Margaret Cho will join the cast of CBS’s “Ghost Whisperer” starting February 5. She will play Professor Avery Grant.
“Ghost Whisperer” follows Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character of Melinda Gordon- a woman who has the ability to see and communicate with ghosts. While trying to live as normal a life as possible, Melinda helps them pass over to the other side by working as an owner of an antique store, sometimes dealing with people who push her away, and disbelieve her ability. The show was created by John Gray and is produced by Sander/Moses Productions, in association with ABC Studios and CBS Television Studios.
Margaret Cho has performed nationwide with one-woman shows including “I’m the One That I Want,” “Notorious C.H.O,” “Revolution,” “State of Emergency,” and “Assassin.” On screen, she has played John Travolta’s FBI colleague in the action movie “Face/Off.” On television, she appears as Terri – assistant to lawyer Jane Bingham – on Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva.
“Ghost Whisperer” airs on CBS Friday’s at 8 pm EST.
The very popular TV show LOST kicks off its final season on Tuesday at 9pm EST on ABC. LOST was the first time we saw a Korean couple kiss on an American television program, and what was also remarkable about LOST is that the Korean couple played significant roles in the show as the only married couple on the island. Daniel Dae Kim plays Jin, the very stoic and subdued husband of Sun, who’s played by Korean actress Yunjin Kim. It was awesome seeing their relationship evolve over the course of 5 seasons but sadly Jin’s death on the show was a shock which shook the series and further created twists in the already crazy story lines of LOST. Sadly for the viewers, the show is finally concluding this season but we can look back and say that this show was the first to break ground in revealing Korean relationships.
Here’s an excerpt from a recent interview with Yunjin Kim regarding the final season of LOST.
What were your expectations when you signed on as a cast member?
When I read the script, I thought it was like a movie script. I had never seen anything like this on television. I thought, “Either this is going to be the best TV show or the worst TV show.” And when I say it had the potential to be bad, I mean so bad that we would be made fun of for years!
What do you think of the journey of personal growth that Sun has taken over the years?
Sun has come such a long way from the pilot. If you remember, she was very subservient, a really quiet, scared woman who did whatever she was told by her husband. Now you cut to Season 6 and she’s a very different woman and very much her own person. That’s something that [producers] J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof promised from the beginning. I was concerned that I was playing into this stereotypical image of that Asian woman. But J.J. said, “You’re going to end up loving this character.”
Sun and her husband Jin (played by Daniel Dae Kim) differ from most of the other characters. Your thoughts about their relationship?
Sun and Jin’s stories have touched a lot of people, I think, because we are the only married couple on the island. We do have Rose and Bernard, but they’re guest stars. They sometimes show up and sometimes don’t, and they’re loved by fans as well. But Sun and Jin represent the only marriage and the most real and most tangible relationship on the island. And people root for us. They can’t wait to see us get back together and into each other’s arms. People really want to see a happy ending for Sun and Jin. It’s really touching.
What will be your most cherished memory of working on the show?
I had a such good feeling about it once I stepped into the set of Lost for the first time and saw that chopped-off half plane sitting on the beach. That was my first impression: “Oh, my God, is that a real plane chopped up in half?” And they said, “Yeah, we brought it in from L.A.” This beautiful Hawaiian beach and the chaos of the crash site to contradict it, it was quite stunning. I think I will always remember that first moment of just going, “Wow!”
For the promotion video of season 6, go to ABC.com and find a few spoilers.
Who was the first Korean male to star in a leading role in a Hollywood film? That would be RAIN, the Korean pop star known was the Justin Timberlake of Asia. We knew he was going to be big back in 2006 when he was voted #1 to the TIME 100 poll, beating out everyone else in the world that was thrown on the ballot. Fast forward three years later and we found RAIN kicking his way into Ninja Assassin, produced by the guys who brought the Matrix Trilogy. What RAIN represents is the future of entertainment because the economics dictate such. With the advent of digital undermining the traditional Hollywood business model, Hollywood has to seek out new ways to expand their reach and better monetize their products. Asia is the new frontier, but RAIN wasn’t necessarily the first guy to build that bridge to several billion people across the Pacific for Hollywood. There was of course Jackie Chan, Jet Li and others who found themselves as the first set of Asians in co-leading roles of big budget films. It’s obvious that Hollywood is trying to identify someone who has a huge following and leveraging their fame to expand their overall reach. What RAIN has done is open the possibilities for other Koreans to venture into Hollywood and perhaps someday, well be cheering on our version of Slumdog Millionaire. Someday we’ll look back and say that guys like John Cho and RAIN were the ones who put Koreans on the Hollywood radar, and that’s why RAIN is #3 on our top ten list of most influential Korean(-Americans) for 2009.
Big bummer for Korean-American actor Daniel Henney who was a co-star on the CBS medical drama “Three Rivers,” which got cancelled this past week. The TV show about organ transplant doctors in the Pittsburgh area had a tough time slot, going up against NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Of course they were trying to appeal to the female demographic since all the men would be watching football, but initial low ratings compounded by waning interest only made it an obvious candidate for getting cut. To bad for Daniel Henney who made a splash this past summer as Agent Zero in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and looked like he was on the rise with a network TV show. I guess you win some and you lose some. Well, his very promising career won’t be curtailed. He could always return to South Korea where he was a star in Korean dramas or he could continue to pursue Hollywood. He certainly has the talent because not to many people, especially Asian, get a big role in a summer blockbuster movie and a network TV show. Doesn’t that sound like John Cho (Star Trek & FlashForward)? We hope to see Daniel Henney sooner than later in another Hollywood movie or TV show.
Ninja Assassin hasn’t gotten the best of reviews from film critics and we won’t find out how well it did in the theaters for another few days but what we do know is that there’s a lot of buzz for RAIN. It’s been reported that Hollywood is engaging RAIN and he’s already looking at a handful of scripts. If his fan base comes out in full force, and the movie does well with box office receipts, then you know Hollywood will give RAIN another try. CNN even took notice this week as they state that RAIN “has all the trimmings of an international superstar in the making.” Let it RAIN!
It has finally come, the week that “Ninja Assassin” opens up around the world. The movie will be opening out in the U.S. on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. So should you go or should you stay at home? If you like RAIN and great fighting sequences, then buy that movie ticket. If you want to support a Korean man in the lead role of a Hollywood action movie, then definitely go because this movie has a lot of ramifications. If you’ve watched the Matrix franchise, then you’ll see distinct plot elements that originated from the Wachowski brothers who produced Ninja Assassin and directed the Matrix movies. And you’ll also see unique action direction from James McTeigue who is a student of the Wachowski brothers. The fighting is amazing! But what are the implications I mentioned earlier?
This movie does have implications and Hollywood is closely watching because there are certain realities that have Hollywood rethinking their business model. Big movie stars used to almost guarantee big box office returns, but there have been enough clunkers from Will Ferrell, Tom Cruise and other big name actors that have caused pause. DVD sales which used to be a cash cow and help counter clunkers is quickly eroding in the new digital world. So what does Hollywood need to do to refine or change its model? It looks overseas because there is a growing global box office. This is why Ninja Assassin is important because it can demonstrate to Hollywood that you can cast an unknown in a lead role, especially Asian and have success because of the global market. RAIN is one of Asia’s biggest pop stars and his ability to bring in international box office receipts will pave the way for other Asian stars to enter Hollywood and play critical roles. If you didn’t know, Ninja Assassin is the big movie that’s kicking off the holiday movie season and it only cost $30M to make. The world is changing and Hollywood knows it and it’s realizing that the traditional model of casting and movie distribution has to change. Whether you like Ninja movies or not, let’s hope that the movie is a success and it paves the way for other Koreans and Asians in Hollywood.
For our interview with RAIN, check out the video below.
Check out the movie clips from Ninja Assassin. The fighting is real good!
Ninja Assassin is coming soon to a theater near you during Thanksgiving. A new video clip was released this week and the fighting looks pretty damn good. We’re getting excited!
The Hollywood Reporter published a very interesting article this morning about the Korean wave (“hallyu” in Korean) of actors finding their way into big hollywood studio films. Coincidentally, we published a similar article yesterday about this occurrence. Very interesting. Coincidence? Perhaps.
They beg the question, what’s with the interest in South Korean actors when they can barely speak English? Someone once said, “don’t think it’s just about the money, it’s ALWAYS about the money.” Hollywood used to view Asia as a region of incremental dollars for their films, but with the significant rise of South Korean films, dramas, and their talent pool, Hollywood has taken notice of its big potential. For example, the Hollywood Reporter article starts off by noting that South Korean actor Lee Byung-hun was the most anticipated sighting for the fans waiting at the hotel, and not Sienna Miller and the other actors in G.I. Joe.
“For Hollywood, it [hallyu] is a sign that Korean actors hold major ticket power in Asia,” said Choi Min-soo, the head of marketing at CJ Entertainment, the importer of “G.I. Joe.” “It’s also a sign that the Asian market is no longer just ‘one of them.’”
Hollywood may have almost exhausted what it can do domestically, and the last few years we’ve seen Hollywood look to remake dozens of films that were first produced overseas and the subsequent trend is to import the actors and actresses that have a strong following. In the business world, it’s about scale and Hollywood is finally realizing that the scale is much bigger when you start weaving and integrating pieces together from outside the U.S. borders.
For Paramount Pictures, the film’s distributor, this was a promising sign — one that suggests the potential benefit of casting an Asian superstar to attract regional ticket buyers when marketing a quintessentially American film.
The strategy seems to be on the rise with major Hollywood productions that once had limited roles for Asian actors. Aside from Lee, who plays the film’s charismatic Storm Shadow, other Korean actors are also participating in the trend.
Similar to the Korean wave of singers i.e., Wonder Girls, BoA, etc. entering the U.S. market, it’s these supporting roles that are paving the wave for greater acceptance of Koreans in the biggest media and entertainment market. For those doubters, did you really think America would have a black president 2 years ago? Believe in the Korean wave!
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