MASALAWhile droves of aspiring actors f lock to Los Angeles ever y day, Helen
Madelyn Kim f led her hometown of Tinseltown as soon as she could. With
fantasies of directing her own Asian American stage troupe, she ran off
to New York right after graduate school. It turns out, it’s pretty tough to
bankroll a theater company. But working for someone else turned out to
have some positive results, too.
Over the phone, Kim is ever y bit as exuberant and animated as her recur-
ring characters on Lifetime’s American Princess and Hulu’s Runaways. The
Angeleno actress also appeared on Netf lix’s GLOW and Freeform’s Famou s
in Love. While new to the scene, Kim has put in the hard work. After pursu-
ing a double major in theater and art histor y at the University of California,
Riverside, and snagging a master’s in acting at the University of Iowa, Kim
waited tables in the Big Apple while performing off-Broadway to chase her
big-stage ensemble dreams. They never came. “This was before I realized
how hard it is to really have your own theater company,” explains Kim,
“back when I was young and full of dreams.”
Ironically, it was losing out on an audition for the play Vietgone that
connected her with her first big break. But it wasn’t on a glamorous stage
of Broadway, it was under the bright lights of Holly wood, for a role as a
check-in lady in the women’s wrestling romp GLOW. Her first taste of TV
fame led to an important realization. “I found myself auditioning a lot for
TV, film and commercial work. It got to a point where I was like, OK, I need
to give L.A. a shot,” says Kim. “You get to an age where your parents are
older, and you’ve been away from your family for a while, so I decided to
move back to Los Angeles.”
A perpetual underdog and workhorse, last summer Kim found herself
juggling her two biggest jobs up to date, Runaways and American Princess,
as a reward for her hard work. Runaways was supposed to be a one-off, but
Kim’s stellar performance parlayed her single appearance into a recurring
guest role. American Princess was another unlikely victor y. While checking
in, Kim felt her heart sink when she saw the high-voltage names audition-
ing ahead of her. “I’m not going to book this; this is clearly going to one of
these actors,” she recalls thinking. “Whatever, I’m just going to have fun
and just do my thing.” She did her thing. She got the role.
Kim’s thrives on bold, over-the-top characters. In American Princess, a
comedy that debuted in June, which follows a scorned Manhattan bride
joining a Renaissance faire, Kim cranks up her snobber y as Lexi, a sassy
New York socialite. In Runaways, she exists in the same universe as Spi-
der-Man and Captain America as Megan, a bubbly millennial working at a
corrupt nonprofit. Like a well-charged phone, these characters are always
juiced up to 100 percent, and their brief appearances highlight a blend of
Kim’s effer vescent personality and extensive thespian pedigree.
Despite her momentum, Kim isn’t looking ahead because she knows she
can lose it all in an instant. “For me, I don’t know when I’m going to work
again,” she says. “I’m just going to take this in.” Even now, she catches
herself reveling in her on-set surroundings in between takes; some-
times, reality still hasn’t sunk in. After all, even talented actresses need to
fangirl sometimes.
When Kim feels out of place, she reminds herself how far she’s come. “I
worked really hard, I earned this. It wasn’t just handed to me,” she recites.
As the first act of Kim’s show-biz career concludes, it seems like the best is
yet to come.BRIDESMAIDS From left: Tommy Dorfman, Mimi
Gianopulos, Helen Madelyn Kim and Rana Roy support
series star Georgia Flood. Photo courtesy of Lifetime.Kim Probable
American Princess’s Helen Madelyn Kim doesn’t need a stage to steal the show.
TEXT BY TANDY LAU
CM