The surprising connection between Jaws and Kim's Convenience
Paul Lee talks about how the hero of Steven Spielberg's 1975 film helped inspire Mr. Kim's character
When he was only five years old, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee's father took him to see Steven Spielberg's Jaws. Little did he know that experience would continue to resonate over 40 years later when Lee took on the Canadian Screen Award-winning role of Mr. Kim "Appa" Song-il on CBC's hit series Kim's Convenience.
In the above video, Lee talks about how Jaws star Roy Scheider came to inspire his work by playing a kind of hero we don't see on the screen enough these days.
"Back in the 70s, there really was a sense that these were real guys," Lee says of Brody and other big screen heroes of his era. "Even though he's scared of the water, he goes out there because he needs to protect his family. And with Appa, there's a lot of stuff he'd rather not do. So in a very long, wind about way, Jaws was the movie kind of set it off for me."
Season 2 of Kim's Convenience airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. (9:30NT) Catch it on CBC Television or at cbc.ca/watch.