Disclaimer: This The Boys interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. This interview contains spoilers for The Boys season 4.
The Boys season 4 has aired with numerous shocking developments. Kimiko and Frenchie have mutually admitted their romantic inclinations for one another. Butcher has gone full Compound V and murdered Victoria Neuman with his giant tentacle powers. The various members of The Boys are rounded up and taken into custody with only Annie January able to escape by flying away.
However, the most satisfying development of all is Kimiko finally speaking out loud for the first time since she first succumbed to traumatic mutism in The Boys. I sat down with The Boys actress Karen Fukuhara to speak about her work playing Kimiko. Before we begin, I briefly show her my cat Kimiko, named after her character on The Boys.
Karen Fukuhara On Kimiko’s Arc In The Boys Season 4
LadyJenevia: I have been waiting years for this moment, for Kimiko to finally get to speak out loud on the show. Were there any discussions about what sort of accent she might have upon actually getting to speak out loud? She is Japanese, but she’s multilingual. She’s had exposure to different places and languages. It feels like something that could have gone in any number of directions.
Fukuhara: We had that conversation because the show has been leading up to that specific moment and we wanted to get it right. I was so nervous going into it because I just wanted to live up to everyone’s expectations. Kripke said that we didn’t think she would have an accent. Maybe even a slight one, but then we didn’t really know what type of accent she would have.
She came from Japanese parents but was kidnapped in the Philippines. She loses her voice so would she ever have an accent because she lost it at such a young age? It got a little complicated and we just came up with… no accent.
We’re trying to lose the little bit of valley girl accent that I might naturally have speaking to you. That’s not right for Kimiko.
LadyJenevia: A seemingly small detail that jumped out to me in season four was from episode one. They’re on a mission but Kimiko goes out of her way to bring food to Mother’s Milk. That to me, as a Japanese person, felt so quintessentially Japanese: showing love through food.
Other ethnic cultures do that as well but it made me wonder, were there any culturally specific aspects of Kimiko that you have contributed either in season four or throughout your entire journey of playing her?
Fukuhara: I don’t think there have been a ton of moments where Kimiko shows her Japanese upbringing. Especially because she was taken away at such a young age, I don’t think she has a ton of culture within her body. But when Kenji, her brother, came into the picture and he had to speak Japanese and I had to speak in sign language, we went through the script a lot. Getting the language right was really important to me. I helped out with a lot of the translations.
Kenji is played by Abraham, who doesn’t speak Japanese. He’s Korean so he doesn’t speak Japanese, although he knew a lot of it. I think we went through the script a number of times and just double-checked to see if the accent was right, if the wording was natural. Japanese is a really unique language and there’s a lot of hierarchy within the language so it’s difficult to navigate sometimes. I’d like to think that I was able to work together with them on the language of that.
LadyJenevia: You’re so right about the hierarchy thing. The most embarrassing thing for me, as a Japanese person who doesn’t get to use Japanese as often, is that my keigo is really bad.
Fukuhara: I have to say the same thing! I mean, I just have to get in the rhythm of things. I can do keigo but a lot of times, I’m speaking to my parents and we don’t use keigo there. My hardest thing is emails. When I get a formal email in Japanese, it takes me so long to respond back even if it’s just two sentences. I’m like, ‘Ah, I hope this is okay! Does it sound childish?’ I always have to send it to my mom first and be like, “Hey, is this good? Good enough?” But yeah, keigo is difficult.
LadyJenevia: Yes, it really is.
LadyJenevia: Correct me if I’m wrong but were you a sociology major?
Fukuhara: I was, yeah. I was a sociology major and a theatre minor.
LadyJenevia: The concept of self, as in one’s sense of self, it’s not something that’s typically considered as fixed in Japanese culture but also just more broadly speaking Eastern cultures. Western cultures tend to see the concept of self as something more concrete.
Fukuhara: Like individualistic.
LadyJenevia: Yes. This made me wonder, is this idea of having this fluidity of the concept of self, is that something that colours either how you understand Kimiko as you portray these many different versions and facets of her, or even more broadly speaking, how you approach acting and having that ability to be more fluid in how you express yourself?
Fukuhara: Yeah, I love this question! In sociology we always learned that everything is learned behaviour. It’s socially constructed and therefore every society has their own rules. I think in American culture, it’s really important to have your individual self defined.
Who are you? What is your brand? What do you stand for? In Japan, I think it’s more about being a team player, how you can serve other people, and it’s not so much about standing out. I think both are great. I think it’s important to have duality.
In terms of Kimiko, again, I feel like she is the outlier here. She has grown up in this crazy survival mode environment where she doesn’t have the luxury of having free time to find herself. That hasn’t really been at the forefront of her mind up until maybe…
She loves musicals, and she’s been able to have free time with Frenchie. I created back story with them at the beginning of season three, before we started that. That’s when she finally starts to question, ‘What are my hobbies? What kind of music do I like? What foods do I like?’ Things like that.
I think the beauty of Kimiko is that she can be a softie as well as a violent, hard-ass, kick-ass woman. I think she can hold both and that’s why I love playing her so much because I get to do both of those. Kripke always wanted Kimiko to be a normal girl put in a crazy, dire situation.
If circumstances were different, she would be living her normal life in normal society, having friends and a boyfriend, living life regularly. Because she’s in the world of The Boys, she has to fight for her life.
A Happy Ending For Kimchie
LadyJenevia: I’m a romance girlie. I love romance and rom coms and all of that type of stuff.
Fukuhara: Me too! I love them.
LadyJenevia: I picked up on ‘The Vibes’ between Frenchie and Kimiko, basically within the first couple scenes they had with each other. It felt very touch and go about whether or not the show would actually fully commit, which obviously now they have. Did you always approach playing Kimiko’s feelings as having that romantic undercurrent or was that something you started to build up more so in some of the more recent seasons?
Fukuhara: We as actors didn’t know what was going to happen, and I think Kripke also didn’t know when we started the series in season one. Honestly, I think it came naturally because Tomer and I have such chemistry together. I think it was written in because of the chemistry that we had. I love it.
I stan Kimchie, and season 4 is sort of going in a different direction right now but I always love them together. I don’t think I played the undercurrent always, but there are definitely moments in the previous seasons where I kind of took the hint. Especially the musical sequence, you could just tell that Kimiko has feelings for Frenchie although it’s not so much reciprocated which is so heartbreaking.
Love For Rom-Coms
LadyJenevia: I’ve heard you say in other interviews that you would love to be in a rom com. Can you share maybe two or three of your favourite rom coms just so I can get a portrait in my head of what you’re inclined towards?
Fukuhara: Okay, anything that Emma Stone has been in. I love, uh… Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, what was that movie called?
LadyJenevia: Crazy Stupid Love.
Fukuhara: Crazy Stupid Love! One of my favourite rom-coms. I love John Tucker Must Die. I love the girl power movies that have an undercurrent of a romance. I’m trying to think of anything recent that I’ve seen…
LadyJenevia: The two best recent rom coms are The Lost City and Anyone But You. The Lost City is with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum and Anyone But You is Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney.
Fukuhara: Oh my god! Okay yes, yes! I haven’t seen either of those, to be honest.
LadyJenevia: They’re both very good, highly recommend.
Fukuhara: Okay, I mean, they both look hot so I’m not complaining here. I mean, they look the part.
LadyJenevia: They’re great, and I think that you shouldn’t wait around for the industry. I’ve heard you say that you’re maybe interested in producing at some point; produce it, develop it.
Fukuhara: Should I make it?
LadyJenevia: You should because Sydney Sweeney developed Anyone But You herself.
Fukuhara: That’s true, that’s true.
LadyJenevia: She scouted her leading man, she found the director, and then she took it to Sony to pitch so I believe you can do the same.
Fukuhara: She found him on stage, right? For MTV?
LadyJenevia: Yeah.
Fukuhara: That’s insane. I love that. She’s really killing it in this industry. Her and Margot Robbie and Reese Witherspoon, I feel like I need to take notes on their business models and figure it out. I would love to, yeah. Who would play opposite me, do you think?
LadyJenevia: My knee-jerk reaction is Austin Butler because I think he’s the best actor of our generation.
Fukuhara: Austin Butler would be cool.
LadyJenevia: But if you want it to be two girls then I say Stephanie Hsu. Either way, I’m not picky. Vibes are vibes, I don’t care who’s playing them.
Fukuhara: Oh, okay! I could do Stephanie Hsu! That would be… I mean, that would be a spicy rom com! I’m into that, okay, we’ll pitch it, we’ll pitch it.
Looking Towards The Boys Season 5
LadyJenevia: Moving forward into season five of The Boys, do you have a clear vision in your head, purely as someone that’s spent so long with this character of where you would like her story to end? I know that you don’t get to decide that as an actor but do you just from your own imagination, do you kind of have a path in your head of where you want her to end up?
Fukuhara: I actually don’t. I’ve learned early on and I learned this from a writer on our show. He told me that if you speak it out loud, it will not come true, so I’ve been very careful about what I want for the character, what I want for Frenchie and Kimiko, I get that question a lot and I’m like, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.
Until the end, I don’t know.’ I just hope I’m there till the end. You know, a lot of characters are getting killed, I’m like, ‘Please, not me!’ But yeah, I don’t know the answer to that question. What about you? What do you want?
LadyJenevia: I just want her to be alive. That’s my number one thing.
Fukuhara: Yes, girl!
LadyJenevia: If she dies, like permanently dies, I will completely disavow the show and I will refuse to ever rewatch it or promote it in any way shape or form. It’s that serious for me, where I’m emotionally invested. I don’t think it helps that I named my cat after your work because now I say “Kimiko” so much, every day I say “Kimiko” and I have so much love for my fur baby that projects towards that name that it kind of gets all…
Fukuhara: Jumbled, jumbled…
LadyJenevia: …wires crossed in my brain.
Fukuhara: Yeah, for sure, for sure, let’s just pray to the superhero gods that Kimiko stays alive.
LadyJenevia: It’s truly my only demand. She has to be alive, and that’s so broad. You could do so many things with that. As long as she’s alive, we’re good.
Fukuhara: Yeah, I’m there with you. I’m right there with you. Thank you for vouching for me, thank you.
Watch my full interview with The Boys’ Karen Fukuhara here, and don’t forget to catch The Boys season 4 on Prime Video now:
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