Charlatan reporter Chris O’Gorman spoke with actress Grace Lynn Kung about coming home to Ottawa for her role in Kim’s Convenience, a play about family ties that has toured Canada for the last year. Kung plays the daughter of Appa, the Kim family patriarch. The play runs at the National Arts Centre Jan. 22 – Feb. 8.
The interview has been edited and condensed.
The Charlatan (TC): How does it feel to be back in Ottawa?
Grace Lynn Kung: It’s great and it’s funny because I had a couple interviews and we’re on this TV show and they’re asking ‘how does it feel to be back in Ottawa’ and I think it’s only just hitting me now sort of what it means to be back home on this tour . . . It’s really felt like Ottawa’s a bit of an extended family, and it’s funny because the play is all about family.
It’s really special being in your hometown. It’s special because I was living in Toronto and then London—big cities—but something about what you saw while growing up seems so much bigger. So the NAC seems far bigger than a lot of theatres I’ve seen in those big cities, because I have all these ties to it from being a child.
TC: How did you get into the character of Janet and her relationship with her father?
Kung: [Laughing] My mother after opening night was like ‘wow, they really picked a good Janet, that’s really like you.’ A lot of the struggle was the same, because there was resistance from my family—my mom was really worried. I was the first one to be something other than a scientist and my mom raised my brother and I, so she was concerned about things like stability and the acting business is certainly not known for being particularly comfortable, or stable.
But I think throughout the years, through working and pushing for more work and slowly getting more traction, my mom’s been so supportive of everything I’ve done, even if she was worried.
I really identify with that story, that fight of still being a daughter—I’m very loyal but I’m also very stubborn about what I want to pursue in my life, my goals, and Janet’s really caught between those two worlds, and [her brother] has left and I understand that. Jung leaving, the brother in the play, also has a myriad issues and is very volatile with his father. And Janet has decided to stay. And even though they probably yell and scream every day, there’s a part inside that they never talk about but they know that it’s for love. They won’t talk about it. No one ever says love, but there’s an understanding.
TC: Was the play very similar to your upbringing?
Kung: Very similar. I think that’s why people are responding, because they really do see the reality of family life. A lot is lost in translation, whether it’s generational or personal, but definitely there’s extra heat when it comes from a parent. That rings very true—maneuvering the love and the fiery yelling and all of that.
TC: Anything you’d like to add?
Kung: I’d have to say that coming back to theatre—the Kim family is small—we have become a family and the dynamic is very much the same. I learned a lot about myself, and about myself as an actor, having to do a show this long. We have really grown up in the show. It has changed so much since our first performance. It’s changing, it’s morphing, we’re trying new things. It feels like I’ve really been learning things about myself, not just in the outside world, but more about myself as a person, and how you’re perceived and more about family and trying to be a little bit more patient and say the things out loud that the family doesn’t say on stage.
