Tag: actor

Daniel K. Isaac is best known for his ensemble role on the Showtime series Billions where he plays portfolio manager Ben Kim. But 2022 was a pivotal year for the actor and playwright, whose passion is the stage. He starred in The Chinese Lady at the Public Theater; he made his playwriting debut with Once Upon a (korean) Time for the Ma-Yi Theater Company; and he’s currently starring opposite Linda Lavin in You Will Get Sick at the Roundabout Theater. Daniel was born in Southern California, the only child of a single mother active in her evangelical Korean church. As a gay teenager, he struggled against his sexual orientation and even underwent conversion therapy. (Spoiler alert: It did not work.) In a candid, funny and yes, raunchy, conversation he opens up about his early sexual experiences, his estrangement from his father and his ongoing conflict with his mother, who disowned him when he was in college and is still “in the closet” about being the mom of a gay son — despite the fact that Isaac has turned many of her remarks into the viral hashtag #accordingtomymother. Prepare to laugh, cry and cover your young children’s ears.

In recent years we’ve seen a boom of Asian American actors in film and TV. But for decades, John Cho was practically the only one. He first came to fame in 2004 playing Harold in the Harold and Kumar films, a role that challenged many people’s ideas about what a leading man could look like. He’s built his career thoughtfully ever since, taking roles (Sulu in the Star Trek films, Spike Spiegel in Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop) that don’t play into negative stereotypes. The son of a minister, Cho was born in Seoul and moved to the States when he was six. He has just written his first book, Troublemaker, a middle grade novel about a 12-year-old Korean American boy’s experience of the LA riots. In a candid and open conversation, Cho recalls his own experience of 사이구(SaIGu), his memories of growing up in the church and the bottled up anger he’s often felt as an Asian American man. Juliana and Catherine also get to hear about Cho’s love of Little House on the Prairie and how books helped him through his peripatetic childhood.