David Yung Ho Kim remembers the moment when he had to press pause on his dream of becoming a performer. In high school he auditioned for a K-pop band in South Korea, but his father had different ideas.
“You must come back to America and go to law school,” Kim recalls his father saying. “I told you since you were five that you’re gonna be a lawyer, and your brother is gonna be a doctor.”
Kim did go to law school in New York, but he kept his dream alive by taking acting classes on weekends in Greenwich Village. He was eventually cast in a film called Jasmine.
After graduation, he worked in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office. This brought him tantalizingly close to the film studios in nearby Hollywood. He continued taking acting classes and signing up for workshops about directing and other parts of the business.
“I went out to a commercial audition for curiosity’s sake, and I realized I loved it,” says the WeWork Gas Tower member. “Now I have a talent agent and manager.”
He left the D.A.’s office to join a law firm specializing in litigation. A few commercials, reality TV shows, and minor roles later, he realized he needed to find a day job with greater flexibility.
“I ended up working for two different entertainment companies in-house,” Kim says. “I thought, ‘It’s time to open up my own shop and start an entertainment law practice. My acting career and this could be the way to get a bigger role on the big screen.’”
During the year and a half between graduating law school and starting his own firm, The Hollywood Lawyer, he began to doubt himself.
“I thought it was an immature childhood dream,” Kim recalls. “One of the biggest things that impacted me was this quote: ‘The worst emotion to have is regret because you can’t do anything about it.’ I don’t want to live with regret, so I decided to get back into it.”
When Kim’s not pounding out movie deals, reviewing contracts, and looking over financing agreements at his law firm, his side hustle is acting.
“My ideal would be to stop by my law firm five to 10 hours a week, and be acting full-time,” the 32-year-old Kim says. “But it’ll probably take a year and half until I can live out my ideal dream.”
Photo: Kat Wickstrom