Hoon Lee’s commanding and assured role as King Mongkut in the Lincoln Center Theater’s revival of “The King and I” is the kind of performance that sends audience members riffling through the Playbill’s bios: “Who is this guy?”It appears that this star turn comes more than two decades after Lee graduated from Harvard University and subsequently filled his resume with a Broadway debut in “Urinetown,” followed by performances in the 2002 revival of “Flower Drum Song” and a 2004 revival of “Pacific Overtures.” A starring role in David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face” won him a Theatre World Award in 2008, but perhaps more relevant to his current role, he was cast as the Kralahome, the king’s prime minister, in a 2002 revival of “The King and I” at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse. Lee’s vulnerable and heart-breaking performance as the King in Bartlett Sher’s Tony-Award winning production at the Vivian Beaumont goes a long way in erasing the memory of Yul Brynner, who created the role both on stage and film in the beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein classic. And it has brought the 42-year-old some of the best reviews of his career, many of which have noted a crackling sexual chemistry between Lee and Kelli O’Hara, who won a Tony Award for the role of Anna Leonowens.“…What a difference a king makes,” wrote Ben Brantley in the New York Times. “The role of His Majesty, originated in this revival by the imposing Japanese film star Ken Watanabe, has been taken on by the American actor Hoon Lee, who provides his character with both a tickling wit and a flickering self-awareness that balances on the brink of tragedy.”His majestic command in the role is all the more impressive when one is sent to the Cinemax website to catch up on his performances as Job, the dyspeptic but fiercely loyal cross-dressing computer hacker embroiled in a skein of skullduggery in the TV series “Banshee.” The mercurial and formidable Job is a shape-shifter of sorts — dressed in a flak jacket one day, in heels on another — but one who is always honest, according to his creator.“He’s very straightforward and that’s part of why he presents himself as he does, ” says Lee. “I don’t think he’s putting on a mask, he’s simply expressing himself in a very honest way. This is how he feels and who he thinks he is on any given day as opposed to us who choose an aspect and present that over and over again no matter what the complexity of our personality may be.”In a chat for ARTINFO, the actor discussed coming to terms with the complexities of both King Mongkut and Job and the weight of expectations as the son of Korean immigrants who were at first skeptical of a career that has brought him so may rewards.Was it daunting to assume such an iconic role? I think when you have an iconic role at a time when there aren’t many designated leading roles for Asians, there’s often a disproportionate amount of weight placed on these roles. What that can lead to is a concern to be careful not to put out an image that’s too much of its time. The key to any of those concerns is to really look for the humanity and specificity in the role and then you find that the character transcends a lot of those concerns. Where do you locate humanity in King Mongkut? In this production, there is a greater emphasis on the international conflicts that were emerging at the time in which the play is set. Siam was the last country to not become a protectorate and that raises the stakes for the king, it really cranks up the pressure on him. You have a person who is being tested in a way that he’s never been tested before. You have a person who is now wading out into unknown waters even in his own personality. I tried to key into the idea that this is all new terrain to him.How does this affect his relationship with Anna? The question there is “What’s going on between them?” This is an act of discovery for him. This is a man who has had no real barriers to his will and how does he deal with someone who obstructs that will? How does he feel about it? It frustrates him but also intrigues him. And he comes to appreciate her and need her. He’s described as childlike. Not in the sense of immaturity, but in the sense of discovery, wonder and newness.How do you interpret their sexual chemistry? These two people, who exist outside the norm in each of their cultures, have found a way to communicate with each other. Anna is given a certain kind of power and status and trust, and the king is allowed to be a man — and just a man. And I think that that’s the key for me. This is the start of a relationship that’s based not just in physical lust, or anything like that, but on a true partnership. To me, that’s the beauty of the love story. The sexual desire is born out of something very real and genuine. What personally felt familiar to you about the role? “The King and I” is a classic because its themes are so recognizable. The weight of expectations drives you to a desperate place where you actually don’t know what to do but are expected to know what to do. That’s a position that we’ve all been in albeit in a much more modest capacity than the king. You’re in a position where you have to change or things will go awry. You have to adapt and that’s not easy. There’s that core aspect of working against your own breeding, your own history, your own legacy.How’s that demonstrated in your own life? I’m a son of immigrants and there’s a generation gap, but there’s also a culture gap. Growing up, you experience that pretty intensely. Your parents have been forced to adapt to the country and they have this legacy in which they’ve been raised and they want to raise you in the way they’ve been raised but they also understand that’s kind of impossible. That struggle is the classic tale of the immigrant family.What did your parents feel about you becoming an actor? They had skepticism. I come from a family of scientists and while they appreciate the arts, they never considered it a viable profession. When you hear that as a child, what you hear is that they don’t want you to be happy — when it’s exactly the opposite. They just perceive happiness as a freedom from the concern of where your next paycheck is coming. Once it became clear that I was capable of handling my own business, that it was something I was well built for, their concern over my happiness eased.Did they have a concern about you playing a character as gender-fluid as Job in “Banshee”? Not at all. I told them that this was a role that was going to be challenging for a lot of people, for them too. If their friends saw it, they might get some phone calls. But they understood that it was a once in a lifetime chance for me. Job was not the kind of character, one who lives on the outskirts of society, that I’d been offered a lot. If you’re working in TV, you think you’ll audition for detective number three for an awful long time. It was tremendous to be offered to play a character so wildly out of my compass. They understood it would be hard for me to turn it down.How do understand the specificity and humanity of Job? Job is quite protean. Externally, he makes it up as he goes along, mixes up his look a lot. He doesn’t see a line between certain gender norms. This isn’t somebody who has a “female” identity and then a “male” identity. This is someone who isn’t interested in what it means to have an identity, period. And this carries over into his work [as a hacker] where he’s often called upon to create new identities for others. When Job creates his affect to present to the world, he borrows whatever it is that makes him feel powerful. And sometimes power is putting on flak jacket and sometimes it’s feeling beautiful, sexy and desirable, as a woman and sometimes as a man.Did playing Job help you to prepare for “The King and I”? Yeah, absolutely. There’s no getting around that I’m an Asian-American actor. But if I look at either of the characters as iconic or representative of a group, then I do a disservice to them and get myself into trouble. So when I got the role of Job, I wondered, “Are people going to look at this as some sort of socio-political statement? Are we making broad generalizations about people who like to wear women’s clothing or make assumptions about sexuality?” Those were concerns of mine going in and the only thing I can do about that is to approach the character as an individual with as much integrity as I can and do the homework necessary to understand why this person does the things he does.Do you think that Asian-American actors do not get the opportunities afforded other minorities when it comes to multi-cultural casting? I’ve thought about that, struggling as an actor, and the reality is that there are simply too many variables. It just spins me in circles so I don’t engage in that too much. Are there fewer opportunities? Sure. Are there fewer [Asian-Americans] in positions of power? Probably. On some level, does it matter? No. I’m not able to change those things. What I can do is impact whatever project I’m involved in. If people come to see “The King and I” and they come away moved by the show, I hope it’s because they saw actors of any color or race or gender giving everything that the were capable of to render a beautifully structured, directed, and designed show. That’s the best thing that I can do.
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