By Ada Tseng
David J. Lee plays Hal, the nerdy yet "semi-hip" math graduate student. Previously a protege of Catherine's professor father, Hal manages to get through Catherine's icy exterior and stir up some super-genius romance. But is it amore or is Hal trying to get his hands on some intellectual property and copyright it as his own? Lee is a UCLA alumni and founding member of the Propergander Theatre Company.
APA: Can you please introduce yourself to the APA audience?
David J. Lee: My name is David J. Lee. I include my middle initial because there are a lot of David Lees. In fact, one of the board members at East West, is David Lee. I just met him tonight. So, I have to put the middle initial in there. It's not pretentious, it's just what I have to do, so David J. Lee. I play Hal in this current production of Proof.
APA: Do you relate to the character of Hal?
DJL: Yes I do relate to the character because the character is kind of an unabashed nerd. He's kind of a nerd that's kind of accepted the fact that he's a nerd, and he kind of enjoys it. My day job is that I'm a tech support guy at UCLA. I fix computers. And maybe, God-willing, I'll make the move into acting and really be able to go full-time with it, but right now I have a day job working with computers. And I like working with computers. I'm a big nerd, I know a lot. I'm very good at what I do. I'm not ashamed of it. In a way, I"m kind of proud of it. It's the same way, Hal's a big math geek, but he's a nice guy, he's a sweet guy, and Catherine likes him --after a while -- and I think I'm a nice guy. So in that way, I relate to Hal.
APA: Did you use a lot of yourself to create this character?
DJL: One of the big things about acting is that, everyone's gotta play a character a different way. I landed this role in a certain amount, by skill, but also I think by character, because I'm sure, when you look at some of the other guys who didn't get this role, it wasn't necessarily that I was better than them. It was just that my character as Dave, what I bring to the role is different than what they brought. And that's the big thing: Everyone's going to play a role differently. If you give the same lines to five different people, they're all going to have five takes on it. Even if they hit the same intent, even if they have the same beats or moments, theyr'e going to bring different idiosynchracies and different viewpoints and different nuances to it.
And this is no exception, I feel like I have brought a lot of my own nuances to the character. But that's one thing that's been kind of interesting to me. I do a lot of comedy, and this is one of the first hard-core dramatic characters I've played in a long time, especially at this level. And as much as I feel like I've brought a lot of myself to the role, it's very curious to me to see that I think I've actually become more Hal-like in my actual life, because I've picked up a lot of Hal's idiosyncracies.
APA: In what way?
DJL: Cause honestly, I'm a fairly laid-back guy, and very mellow and maybe a little withdrawn, and Hal's not. He's very unapologetically out there, dorky, very friendly, very positive, and I've noticed in the last few weeks that I've rehearsed for this, I've become a lot more like that. So in that sense, I think Hal has affected me as much as I've affected him.
I have a friend who said exactly the same thing. I have a friend Eddie Shin who's actually my roommate. He was in a Spike Lee project called Sucker Free City. He's the nicest guy you'll ever meet, but he was playing a hard-core thugged-out Asian gangster, and literally, for that month, he was a little testy. So basically, short of it, I really feel lke Hal's affected me as much as I've affected the character of Hal.
APA: Were you a big fan of the play before you got the part?
DJL: Yea, I'm very happy to be part of this project. East West is fantastic gig for any actor and great training. I produce, and I produce very small scale non-union theater. We put on very fun, funny shows, but there's not a lot of budget, and we really have to make do with what we got and make the dollars stretch. But here, the production values, what they're able to pull off, their organization, their staff, it's incredible. They can really go all out. You saw the set. It's nice as an actor to be able to just get immersed in that. So, doing things in East West is fantastic in that aspect.
Proof is one of my favorite plays. Proof is one of the favorite plays of a lot of my friends. I love this play. When I found out they were doing a production here, I auditioned for it, I was like 'God, I hope I get this.' Cause usually in acting, you have to teach yourself to really go in there, do your best, walk out of the room and forget about it. Or else you'll never make it. You can't psychologically survive if you're always beating yourself up over the stuff you didn't get. But for this, I came in really wanting to play this role. One, I love the role of Hal. Two, when am I ever going to get to play this role, doing it full on and stuff? It's nice to be part of a good project. Like, I think it would have been fun to be a small speaking role in Lord of the Rings, just to know that you were part of this fantastic project, you know what I mean? So, it's the same way. I feel so fortunate to have been part of this project.
APA: How was it like having Heidi as a director?
DJL: Heidi has has a fantastic ability to make actors feel comfortable. She works very slowly. She actually straight out told me one time, she said, 'I'm not going to tell you to do something if I know you're going to figure it out next week anyway.' I was like, 'Wow, that's putting a lot of trust in your actors.' And she said, 'Well, I think you need to put a lot of trust in your actors. And that's why casting's so important.' [laughs] But she puts a lot of trust in her actors and it really means a lot.
APA: You and Kimiko have great chemistry onstage.
DJL: I met her at the final callbacks. There were a few actresses, and I rememer really liking her, hoping she would get it. And later, when I found out who the final cast was, I was really happy to find that she had gotten the part, because I remembered her from the auditions.
The thing is that it really helps is that we get along in real life too. Even before rehearsals began, it was really easy to talk to her. She's a great person. It helped so much, it really made it easy to feel comfortable onstage and have chemistry with her. She blows me away, she's fantastic.
APA: What was it like working with Dom and Joanne?
DJL: Dom, the first time I ever saw Dom was, I was doing this Filipino culture night, I'm not Filipino, I'm Korean. I met him at this Filipino culture night, and he was yelling at all of us. . He was totally bald and super intense, and doing a lot of this [makes exaggerated, forceful hand gesture]. And that was my first impression, soI kind of got this idea that that's how he talks all the time. Like even when you're face to face, he's talking like this, just really going all out. But I met him on the first day of rehearsals, he's got this full beard and side chops, and he's like the nicest, warmest guy. And then [smiles], during rehearsal, I'll see little glimpses of the intense Dom coming out. Suddenly his hair falls out and he's all bald. But then he chills out and his hair grows back, and he's nice again. I'm kidding.
It was really a huge deal for me to be able to actually act with this guy. It didn't seem real for a second cause he's someone I knew more as a director. And he's a veteran actor and on a whole different level, so it was kind of a trip. And every time he gave me a piece of friendly advice, I'd always make the point of yelling "I stand on the shoulders of giants." But yea, it's been a huge honor to work with him.
And Joanne, Joanne is like the perfect Claire. I don't even think she's acting, she's just Claire. [laughs]
APA: So you graduated from UCLA?
DJL: Yea I graduated in English major, American Studies. And while I was there, I started a theater company called LCC, which is in its 10th year right now. We actually went back and had a reunion. But that was all of us, that was me and Randall Park, and a bunch of other guys who really started this group, and that actually became the prototype for Propergander, which is my current company.
APA: Can you tell us a little about Propergander?
DJL: Yea, we produce shows every year, one a year during the fall, but this year we're actually going to do two. We do primarily comedic stuff, short form. I would say we borderline on sketch, but we always have a lot of heart in our stories. There's that unspoken understanding that this is about the story, but we always go for the comedy, because my friends are some of the funniest people in the world. So, we have two productions this year, we're going to do another short form show, five short scenes, and then in the fall, Randall Park is working on a full-length.
It's a group of friends, and we're good at what we do. I can with full confidence tell people, 'Come to my show, I guarantee you'll have a good time.' And it's nice to be able to do that. And it's nice to have creative control. Especially with acting, it's something where you can try as hard as you want, and it's always up to someone else, someone else who picks you and decides what you're going to do. It's very interpretive. You're given something, you're told what to do, you interpret it. But when we do our stuff, it's nice that we're able to really create our own stuff and have control over it. It's this level of control that you really don't get otherwise, just being in the business.
Honestly, especially actors and performers of color, you're all fighting for the same piece of the pie. If Gilmore Girls has like this ethnic part, then everyone's' fighting for it. You know what I'm talking about right? It's a good show. But if a show like that has an ethnic part, everybody is fighting for that part, and suddenly we're all fighting against each other. And basically, everyone is fighting for the same small piece of pie. What I equate producing to is baking your own pie. And I like the pie we bake, I'm very proud of our product. So that's Propergander.
APA: Cool, well thank you so much for talking with us.
Published: Thursday, February 17, 2005
