It’s 6:45 PM on August 20th, and Arden Cho is sitting down for one last interview. She’s spent the day doing press and future publicity videos for a campaign she thought had ended in June. To be fair, this is pretty late for an interview. It’s not normal, but while laughingly admitting she’s tired, Cho is punch drunk with energy. And considering her past two months, the reception of “KPop Demon Hunters” may be the gift that keeps giving.
Perhaps the biggest cultural phenomenon Netflix has experienced for a movie release so far (television is a different story), “K-Pop Demon Hunters” has shocked both the streamer, the company that made it, Sony Pictures Animation, and the industry at large. The animated tale follows a fictional K-pop girl group, Huntr/x, who spend their days entertaining a legion of fans and their nights hunting down the hidden, evil demons in the world (think “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” with a K-pop twist). Not only is the movie one of the biggest English-language hits in the history of Netflix, but features a Billboard Hot 100 no. 1 hit in “Golden,” the de facto song of the summer.
Cho voices Rumi, the lead vocalist for Huntr/x, and effectively the movie’s lead character (Rumi’s singing voice is by “Golden” co-writer Ejae). When the role came her way, however, Cho had told her friends and her agent that she was “retired.” She was “heartbroken” over the cancellation of another Netflix project, “Partner Track,” in 2022 and took a year off to travel, and decided to stop auditioning. But then her agent called her about a tiny filmed part in “Maybe Happy Ending,” a fledgling musical at the time, and then “Demon Hunters.” And for some very important reasons, she couldn’t say no.
“It was one of those things where, ‘O.K., yes, I’m still retired, I’m done. I’m not doing any auditions. I’m not doing this anymore.’ But this is different, an animation,” Cho recalls. “And I love animation, and this is for the kids. This one was for me, this is for Baby Arden, who grew up feeling like I didn’t see myself in a lot of these stories, and ‘K-Pop Demon Hunter’ is really the movie that I always hoped for, dreamed for. And again, to be able to have a part in it is just such an incredible honor. And I’m so grateful people are seeing it and loving it.”
Later on, she adds, “I will say that probably the biggest change in the last two months is that I have had this newfound, immense wave of energy. And this new feeling of maybe it’s not too late. No, it’s never too late. Maybe now is the time.”
Considering “K-Pop Demon Hunters” will no doubt spawn multiple sequels and spin-offs, and a seven-month Oscar campaign is on the horizon, we can certainly attest that for Cho, now is absolutely the time.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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As we’re chatting, it has been two months to the day since the movie came out. What have those two months been like for you?
It has been nonstop. I mean, honestly, I am so floored by the response, and I’m so honored. I’m so thankful. But Gregory, I am tired. [Laughs.]
You thought it was a regular movie promotion. It ends when the movie opens and…”No.”
Right. It’s so funny. I remember I threw a birthday party for my fiancé on the 20th because we’re usually done once the movie comes out, and then it’s just been so busy. But again, the love is so incredible, and we are so lucky. And I feel like, because people have been so excited, and I feel like every week there’s a new wave of people that get excited about the movie, and then we’re so lucky we’re still going. We’re going up, up, up, up, up.
You’ve been in the business a while, and you’ve been on shows that have big followings like “Teen Wolf.” You know what that experience can be like to a degree. When did you realize, “Oh wait, this just isn’t a nicely successful little movie on Netflix”?
Honestly, I think it only just started registering maybe a week or two ago. Yeah. First, it was like I was in Korea right after the movie released, and I think it was so exciting to see all the love and excitement in Korea and then Asia. But I feel like for me, I was like,
“Oh yeah, people love the movie. Yay. It’s cool.” But I feel like every single week it’s been a different wave of love. And then I think now in the last couple of weeks it has been everyone in the industry being like, “This isn’t really my kind of movie, [but…].” I feel like this movie is a big hug for everyone, and it’s just hugs everywhere. We had this amazing sing-along last night, and it’s just so many kids showing up loving this movie, adults who are like, “I’ve seen this movie a hundred times, but I’m here singing it.” And it’s just like, how special is that? It’s just been so long since we’ve had movies where people want to watch them more than twice. I feel like if you’ve only watched this movie 3, 4, 5 times, that’s very little at this point. I feel like the average count is 40 right now.
It’s like “Moana” or “Frozen.” That level.
Everyone’s kind of been saying this is the modern-day “Frozen.” And I love “Frozen.” Love that movie so much, but I’ve been noticing how popular “K-Pop Demon Hunters” is with younger boys. And what’s interesting is I’m like, “Oh, I wonder if it’s because all the boys also loved ‘Frozen,’ but they just kind of felt this weird societal thing that they couldn’t love it.”
Maybe.
Not to be judged, but I feel like now all the young boys, girls, grownups, adults, anyone who has an inner child is basically in love with the movie, and then they’re not embarrassed about it. The whole message of the movie is “Just be you. Be shameless, be free, accept you for who you are. And then we’re all dancing and singing our hearts out.” Nobody can quite sing it like Ejae or Rei Ami or Audrey, right? But it’s kind of like who cares? Everyone’s just singing it and living it, and I feel like the message of the movie just resonates so much with everyone.
Do you think the boys are upset that Rumi and Jinu don’t have a happy ending at the end as much as the girls are?
From what I hear, they’re just upset. The Saja Boys are banished, right? Because all my nephews and friends, kids love the Saja Boys. They love “Your Idol.” They love “Soda Pop,” but they love all of it, right? And they love Huntr/x too. So it is very like 50/50. But I feel like, and of course, this is all in the hands of directors Maggie [Kang] and Chris [Appelhans] and our writers and Sony, but in this magical world, I mean, really, is anyone ever dead? I don’t want to say dead.
No. I mean, they’re demons. They can come back. But let’s take a step back. How long ago did you even start working on this project? How long has this journey been?
Wow. So, I recently looked back at it, but my very first audition was in 2022, and I actually auditioned for Celine, and then I think months later, I got an email where my agents were like, “Hey, would you go to a callback session for Rumi?” And I’m like, “Rumi? I don’t think I ever auditioned for Rumi, but what’s that?” And then they brought back the project, and I was like, “Wait, I love this movie.” And they haven’t done it yet. I was literally running to Sony just being like, “I’m here. I’m ready. Let me do this. I’m here. I’ll do whatever. I’ll say all the lines. I’m just so excited.” I mean, again, to be able to be a part of a film that highlights the Korean culture and is just so positive and beautiful and has just got such a great message, and it’s so fun. And I love animation. Literally. I’m such an animation lover, so this was just my dream, an absolute dream. Now that the movie’s come out and it’s received so much love, I’m learning so much about the movie. I always say that as actors, we get a lot of credit, but we sometimes do very little, right? Someone has to write this script, do all the pre-production, all the art, all the directing, all the music, all these incredible producers and people have done so much. And then we kind of get to come in and have all this fun while they are doing all the finishing touches. I always imagined that animation, everything’s done and perfect, and voices just come in, and I always thought it’s the same as ADR, but it’s so different. It’s so cool. And then to get to play a character who is so cool and so badass, and then also to have a vocal counterpart who is my dream come true. So I’m just like, how cool is that, right? To have this sick vocalist, Ejae, basically kind of be a part of me.
We really have only recently met, and it’s so exciting to also get to experience this together. And I feel like that’s so beautiful about this movie. This movie would not have been possible if all of these incredibly talented people had not touched this project. It truly is a work of art, and my mind is blown at just how good it is. I love these concerts, and the way that they captured that in the animation is just insane. All the way down to the light sticks, the shirts, the art, the fans, also the diversity in fans. I don’t know how many times you’ve seen it, but everything from AMAs, which is older ladies to the men, the kids, just, I love that you just see how universal K-pop is.
How different is the final product from when you first started recording? Because some animated films change a lot over the recording process, and some don’t.
I mean, honestly, for me, it didn’t really change that much. I think if anything, everything just was developed and polished, but all the pieces were there. And some scenes might not have made the final cut, but as a viewer, I’m just like, it’s perfect. And again, this is why I’m like, I can’t be a writer. I don’t know how to do that, but I would see some of these scenes maybe without the music in it, or I would see it without all the color and all the lighting. I feel like the lighting in that “K-Pop Demon Hunters” glistens. It’s so pretty, and it’s such a cool style of animation. It has that Sony touch. And Maggie and Chris were so great about showing us a lot of these scenes, being like, “O.K., this is kind of what it’s going to be.” And then at some points it would be our characters’ art is there, but maybe their mouths aren’t moving quite yet, then doing the dialogue, or they’ll adjust it, and then we kind of come back in for stuff. A lot of these scenes, we got to see them grow in a sense. Maggie would be like, “Oh, try this line like this,” and then Chris would also be like, “Oh, what about this?” And so we’d have all these different variations. It was really fun building the characters and the story together. I mean, the story is there. But I think from what I remember is there was a lot, which means I hope that there is either a sequel or a prequel, because I feel like Maggie and Chris have, oh, boy, do they got stories to tell. There’s some stuff that I’m like, “We better get that.”
