Daniel Dae Kim

As someone of Korean descent, I am certain my road was a bit hard. I have to say anyone who's an aspiring actor has a difficult road regardless of race.

I've lived in Hawaii long enough now where people don't make a big deal about me being there; I'm just a part of the community, thankfully.

I really missed the East Coast. I love living in Hawaii, but I miss the changing of seasons.

It's a fun job, but actors are like vagabonds and must go where the work is.

Actors are at the mercy of roles that are offered.

My dad even likes to give me career advice. I'll let him know about some offers about films and TV shows that I get, and he'll ask me questions like, 'What's the money like?' and 'Who got this for you - was it your agent or manager, and what are they getting out of this?'

It's one thing to talk about lack of diversity and lack of representation. But that doesn't matter if you're not good at what you're supposed to be doing.

It's very difficult to be asking other people for opportunities. It is much more empowering to be creating opportunities, to be the one who is saying, 'Look, I'm going to take this from the ground up and create a story that is meaningful to me as an Asian American and cast it with Asian Americans and have Asian Americans writing it.'

Diversity is more than just a buzzword to me. It's my life.

When I wanted to be an attorney, I think I wanted to be a litigator; I wanted to be in a courtroom.

The path to equality is rarely easy.

I'm such a fan of films and books like 'Lord of the Rings' and even 'Star Wars,' despite the fact that, as an actor, I'll never be employed by them.

There are people whose work I greatly admire who just don't write to my experience in any way.

I grew up in a steel town, and at the time, when I was a kid, there weren't any Asian families in the area. So it had its challenges.

Something I often say is, 'I stand on the shoulders of the people who came before, and I'm ready to lift up people to stand on my shoulders.' And one of the ways we can do that is to hire them.

I consciously think about the ethnicity of every character that I create and cast. But one thing that is equally important is quality representation. It's not enough to put an African-American in there, a female in there, a gay character in there: How significant is their contribution? Can they drive the story?

I've read some criticism of 'The Good Doctor' that says it's overly sweet and syrupy. I'll take that criticism, given the world that we live in. I'd much rather be on that side of the equation than the opposite.

As an actor, I was often shielded from the big-picture decisions. But as a producer, I experience all the conversations where there's pushback or a difference of opinion.

What I do know is how difficult it is in this industry to get a show on the air. There's so many different stages: getting a script bought by the network, then getting a pilot made and having that pilot go to series, and then, when that series gets on the air, having people watch it.

When you look at what's written under the Statue of Liberty, it's the immigrant story. It's about 'bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' It's not about 'only bring me only your rich, your wealthy, your smart.'

It takes facing obstacles to grow strong enough to overcome them.

I've always been really interested in the age of the samurai in Japan.

But with two boys and a new puppy, we don't get out much. We're usually home doing stuff together as a family, like watching 'Modern Family.'

My wife will tell you it's the little things, like driving my boys to school on my days off so she can rest. We're not into PDA, but every time we end a phone conversation, we say 'sarang,' which means love in Korean.

Hawaii is so boring because it's always sunny.