Daniel Dae Kim Only Had Two Days to Prepare for 'Hellboy' Role

The path to get the new Hellboy movie to movie screens hasn't exactly been the smoothest one and [...]

The path to get the new Hellboy movie to movie screens hasn't exactly been the smoothest one and one of the challenges the film faced was casting controversy, with Ed Skrein stepping down from the Asian-American role of Ben Daimio just a week after his casting. A month later, Daniel Dae Kim stepped into the role -- and it gave the actor very little time to prepare.

Kim explained to Collider that he only had two days to actually prepare for the film from the time he was cast to the time he was to start shooting as the character.

"[I] had two whole days and 20 hours on a plane," Kim explained of his preparation timeline. "I did a lot of reading and, thankfully, there's a lot of source material."

That's not much time at all to prepare for a role, but despite that hardship, it's what ultimately had to be done. When Skrein was cast as Daimio, there was a bit of backlash that the film was whitewashing the Asian role. Skrein quickly opted to step out of the role, announcing upon his departure that he was vacating the role so it could be "cast appropriately".

"It is clear that representing this character in a culturally accurate way holds significance for people, and that to neglect this responsibility would continue a worrying tendency to obscure ethnic minority stories and voice in the Arts," the actor said in a statement at the time. "I feel it is important to honor and respect that."

Kim coming on board corrected the whitewashing issue, and Skrein's departure and the response from producers committing to casting an Asian actor in the role are things that Kim said impressed him.

"I'd heard about the controversy even before I knew I was going to be a part of this project," he said. "This casting came as the last one in a long line of examples of the exact same issue. So when I heard what the producers did and what in particular Ed Skrein [did], I was deeply moved and very impressed."

Impressed as he was, though, the quick turnaround form his own acceptance of the role and getting down to work did leave Kim to face a daunting aspect of the role: the British accent the film was giving Daimio. In comics, the character is Japanese-American, but in Hellboy, they switched it up so that he's Japanese-British and Kim had never done a British accent before.

"The funny thing is, when I was in drama school, we learned British accents... and I was always excited about being able to learn it but then I thought to myself, 'When as an Asian-American actor will I be asked to do a British accent?'" Kim said. "Lo and behold, Hellboy."

Hellboy hits theaters on April 12th. The reboot is helmed by Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones) from a script by Mignola, Andrew Cosby, Christopher Golden, and Aron Coleite. Harbour stars in the flick alongside Daniel Dae Kim, Mila Jovovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Thomas Haden Church, Brian Gleeson, Sophie Okonedo, and Penelope Mitchell.

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