Kenneth Choi plays Jim Morita in one of the summer of 2011's big action movies, Captain America: The First Avenger, inspired by the comic book series. Morita is one of the good guys, working alongside Captain America (played by Chris Evans) as they battle the bad guys in this big-budget adventure film. But unlike most comic book inspired films, Choi says we can look for Captain America to keep the action and the fighting more reality-based.
In this exclusive interview with Choi, he discusses what it was like being on the set of Captain America, preparing for the role, and how his research impacted the way he played Jim Morita in the feature film. Choi also discusses another of his films that's - hopefully - hitting theater in 2011: Red Dawn.
Kenneth Choi Interview
So how was life on the Captain America set?
Kenneth Choi: "It was a fabulous time on set. I was actually in London for about four months of the shooting. We actually went to Wales, I think, for about a week, week and a half, so yeah it was terrific. It was my first time overseas so that was exciting, but then to be on set was fantastic."
Did you get to go sightseeing during your downtime or were you constantly at work?
Kenneth Choi: "I had some downtime so I was able to explore quite a bit. I had the chance to go to France for a week. One of my cast mates is French, so he went back home and I visited him in Paris for about five glorious days."
Talk about a tough job.
Kenneth Choi: [Laughing] "I did get food poisoning at the end of that trip, though. My cast mate tried to kill me."
Tell me about actually being on the Captain America set. It wasn't all action every day, was it?
Kenneth Choi: "No, absolutely not. Just the experience of filming at Shepperton Studios...even in between takes and stuff, the set-ups were really big and so I would go around and check out the other sets they were building. They were all pretty much on a grand scale. That's the thing with these big budget movies that's fantastic is the scale of them is so impressive. And there were fabulous actors on there as well, and that kind of matched the scale, in terms of physical size. So when I'm sitting at a table and Chris Evans is sitting there and Tommy Lee Jones is at the head of the table, you're just kind of like, 'Wow!'"
With the sets being so massive, it must have made it easier to act like you were taking on the world.
Kenneth Choi: "Absolutely, 100%. That always adds to it. There was some green screen stuff that we did, but even in the green screen stuff we were in huge studios. They'd be like, 'Okay, it's all mountains over there.'"
There's nothing in the film that you're fighting against that isn't actually there?
Kenneth Choi: "No, because whatever we were fighting against was usually other soldiers and stuff like that. There was so many stunt people there, so I think we were always fighting somebody."
How does your character play into the Captain America story?
Kenneth Choi: "My character is Jim Morita. He's a Japanese American, and he's a soldier in the Army. He's an Army Ranger in World War II. And the way he plays in this is that he will end up being someone who fights alongside of Captain America."
Did that require a lot of intense physical training?
Kenneth Choi: "We did some training. We did a lot of stunt training, we did a lot of weapons training. We had some great military advisors there, and some great armory training as well. Military advisor Billy Budd, he was the military advisor on Band of Brothers I believe, he really knows his stuff so we could go to him if we had a question. Then I did a lot of my own research on World War II and the era, and just the feel of what people were going through. It was really interesting."
In doing your own research, what did you come up with that really helped to inform your character?
Kenneth Choi: "What helped me is my character is Japanese American and during that time, the Japanese American people that were fighting - they call them nisei, which is second generation Japanese American - they were fighting in this one unit called the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. And I just kind of tried to inform my character with what they went through. They had the distinction of being the most decorated military unit in military history. Nobody knows that. But during that time, most Japanese people were put in internment camps, and their families were put in internment camps. And in turn, these people said, 'You know what? We don't care. We still want to go fight and prove our loyalty to our country,' and so they did. They were put in their own unit. A lot of people don't know about it. I've got a friend who's a World War II buff and he's never heard of this unit."
"It was just kind of an honor to research these people and what they went through. And so as far as it informing my character, I had little traditions that I did each time before I put on my uniform and before I took it off. Just kind of little things that could get me somewhat in the mind frame of it, and then I could just go out and do whatever was required of me. Just personal stuff, pretty much."
Did learning about the 442nd add a little extra weight to your character as you were thinking about what those men had gone through?
Kenneth Choi: "100%. I'd known about the 442nd before because I did an independent movie years ago and I played a soldier in the 442nd. For this character, it doesn't really say he was part of it. Historically-wise, I had to kind of make it real and go, 'This is why he would be here.' It's kind of within the Marvel universe, which allows for some leeway, why I would be fighting with these guys. So it did, absolutely."
"Again, that story of the 442nd - not a lot of people know about it. They were all about average height, they were 5'4, 5'5, these little guys who had a lot of pride, a lot of fight in them, so it 100% did inform me that way and I did feel the weight of it. I wanted to kind of do the best that I could do because in my mind I was representing them. Again, it's never said but for me that's what I was trying to do."
Did they try to work referencing the 442nd into a line of dialogue?
Kenneth Choi: "No, it never got in. But I think when the character was written back in the '50s, I would imagine that they had heard about this battalion - the writers - and kind of threw him into the comic book world because of it. I think it's 100% got to be based on them."
In a lot of comic book-inspired movies, the action is completely over the top. Is the action in Captain America more reality-based fighting?
Kenneth Choi: "100%. We had the military advisors on the set and the stunt guys worked hand-in-hand with the military advisors. A lot of the stunt guys had military training, so it was very true to what you would do if you were in battle. It wasn't like, 'We're putting you on wires,' and stuff like that. It was, 'This is what your motivation is. You are trying to get from this point to this point to help out these guys who are on your team, and you would go to them like this.' It was based in reality."
"It is a comic book movie but it's also a World War II movie... Well, it's not really a World War II movie but because it takes place in that time and it is a comic book movie, they have some leeway. But they wanted to keep it true to the tone. I think if you see the trailers, even just the look of it - that stylized look of having that kind of feel of World War II, I think they did an amazing job."Back then the cadence of speech was a little bit different. Was it hard to slip back into that era?
Kenneth Choi: "I think that you'll probably hear some it here and there. I actually tried to listen to some tapes. There's some stuff online that you can do where I was trying to listen to a guy who was Japanese who was from the era, and he kind of sounded the same."
Were you a comic book geek before this?
Kenneth Choi: "I was totally a comic book geek. In my formative years I was. I wasn't the biggest Captain America fan. I had read some of the comics. I was more of a huge Daredevil fan, a huge Spider-Man and a huge Wolverine fan. Those are my three favorites."
What do you think it is about comic book characters that still draws in movie audiences?
Kenneth Choi: "At its heart, every comic book story is about the classic good versus evil. But even more than that, let's say with Captain America, this guy in particular he starts out as this scrawny, weak, frail kind of a guy but in his mind and his heart and his spirit he's so huge. He has a lot of fight within him, and then he gets an opportunity to put both of those worlds together and he does become strong physically and fierce physically. And that combined with his mindset and his spirit, I think it's something that everybody can identity with. The way I feel about Captain America is it's kind of like a David and Goliath with a twist."
In your opinion what made Chris Evans the right guy to play Captain America?
Kenneth Choi: "Well, first, he's got the perfect looks. He's got the all-American look. He's just a regular guy from Boston. He's got the physique for it, as far as the Captain America part is concerned. I mean, he worked out diligently. However long he was shooting, I think every day he would have to work out for an hour. I know that he pulled some 15 hour days and after that he would go work out. Physically, he was impressive. But on the other side, the most important part of this character is the Steve Rogers character. So to carry that little guy mentality, the guy who wants to fight for his country, fight for what's right, do the right thing - he's got to bring that to the character all the way through. And I think that he's a talented enough actor that he'll be able to do it. I've been a big fan of his movies since he started, and he's going to be able to carry off that kind of emotional vulnerability as well as all the physical stuff."
And you've also got Red Dawn coming out. How does it compare in tone to the original?
Kenneth Choi: "Well, everyone's haircuts are better. [Laughing] It's not the '80s, right? The music's better. This is like a straight up action kind of popcorn movie. I think what it's got going for it is Dan Bradley. He's known in the entertainment industry as one of the foremost stunt choreographers/stunt directors and this was his first full-time feature directing gig. And I think he's just going to bring all of that popcorn entertainment value to this kind of a movie, which kind of preserves it."
"There's a lot of relationship stuff in it, but it's surrounded by all this action. I think the actors that he chose, even though they're so young, they were incredibly talented. There were some scenes where there was a lot of emotional stuff going on, and they carried that through themselves. I think Dan Bradley and the producers chose the right actors to do it so that they could go ahead and fill the rest of it with that kind of action entertainment value for this kind of movie."You didn't have to go back and do any re-shoots when they decided to change the villains to North Koreans?
Kenneth Choi: "No. I had one line that I had to re-dub and that was it. They really did their best with it. My one line, I think I was in there for 40 minutes because they wanted to get it just right. To re-translate everything, they wanted to get it so that your mouth is moving exactly the same as what's coming out of your mouth. And so they had two separate translators there trying to work together to figure it out, so my one line took 40 minutes. They really made a painstaking effort to get it as right as they could."
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Captain America hits theaters on July 22, 2011.
