How Joel Kim Booster turned a stereotypical sitcom role into gold

Born in South Korea, Booster was adopted by an American couple as an infant, and grew up in what he’s described as a "conservative, white, Evangelical Christian family" in Plainville, Illinois. It’s an upbringing that has made its way into Loot, the Apple TV sitcom starring Maya Rudolph as Molly Wells, a billionaire divorcée who decides to put her wealth toward charity. Booster is Molly’s devoted assistant and best friend, whose codependent relationship with Molly starts to put a strain on his own aspirations to be an actor. But one other source of strain: his white adoptive parents, played by John Lutz and Pam Murphy, who show up in season two to voice their disapproval of his acting career. It was a casting choice inspired by Booster’s own life, and one that Yang and Hubbard explicitly went to Booster for his input.

The second season would continue taking inspiration from Booster’s own transracial upbringing as Nicholas grapples with meeting his biological mother, but in the newly released season three, that storyline took a backseat, at Booster’s own request as he is still figuring out his own personal journey in that regard.

I spoke with Booster about how much his personal life has influenced his character on Loot, why Asian American artists still need to write roles for themselves, and who he would get stranded on a desert island with.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Hoai-Tran Bui: The season starts off with Nicholas pulling out all the stops to get Molly through her latest breakdown. Is there anyone that you would pretend to be stranded on a desert island for?
Joel Kim Booster: Oh, I mean, plenty. It's funny, I'm planning my wedding right now, and we just commented that everyone that we've invited to our wedding, I would trust with my life—some more than others, obviously. But I think especially thinking about your friends in the context of planning a wedding, it really comes into focus who you could spend time with on a desert island if you were stranded together. And I'm very lucky that I have a huge wide array of people in my life that I think I would be well served being stranded with. But for the Internet’s sake, I'll say Bowen Yang.

HB: Nicholas has tried on so many different hats through the first two seasons. He started off as the stereotypical gay assistant, but as he grew closer to the group, he became a confidant, a wrestler, and of course, an actor. When you started the show, did you envision that Nicholas' arc would go in the direction that it did?
JKB: No, not at all. When I started the show, I had been called in for gay assistant roles plenty over the course of my career, and I had played a couple. I initially thought that it was just going to be another sort of proto-stereotypical part. But then I meet (creators) Alan (Yang) and Matt (Hubbard), and I talk to them about the part and their vision for the part. And I knew that even though it starts a little tropey at the beginning, like most characters do at the beginning of most shows, the character grows and goes in a lot of really interesting directions that they had been planning from the jump. And some of that was influenced a little bit by me and my own wants and desires in life, and what interests Matt and Alan too.

HB: Season two left us on a question mark regarding Nicholas's biological parents. You've talked about how your own transracial upbringing influenced the writing of Nicholas. As we learn more about him, does your personal life play more of an influence? Is there sort of a back and forth dynamic there?
JKB: A little bit. It's interesting. They came to me before season two and asked me point-blank, “Do you want your parents on the show to be Asian or do you want them to be white?” And for the purposes of this show, because I knew the episode wouldn't be about my adoption, I really pushed for them to be a transracial family because I have never seen that, as a transracial adoptee, depicted on television before. Usually when you see transracial adoptees or transracial families on television, it's about that in some way or another. And I thought the incidental nature of the representation was really cool.

And when they moved into exploring my connection to my heritage too, that's when I think, I need to go on my own journey before the show can go on that journey with Nicholas. And so I'm still sort of figuring out where that part of my identity fits in for me, personally. And while the show definitely dives into it in some regard, they're definitely really respectful about only going about as far as I'm comfortable.

HB: Season three also sees Nicholas and Molly finally dealing with their codependent relationship, kind of. Were you excited to see the show finally address that?
JKB: Well, yeah, I think it's sort of the natural progression of things. We've done a really good job of developing that relationship over the course of two seasons. And if it stayed stagnant through season three, then I don't know that anyone would stay interested in it. Like any good relationship, it has to evolve, it has to change, you have to grow together. And it's really exciting to see not only sort of the beginnings of their relationship in season three, but also this new paradigm that they're going to have moving forward.

HB: Episode five (which airs Wednesday) gives us Nicholas and Molly's origin story. Before that was shown, what idea did you have of how they met and became the inseparable duo that they are now?
JKB: I mean, honestly, it wasn't very far off from what we got in the show. It seems so perfect. I'm not sure that I ever thought too hard about how long. I always sort of assumed maybe she had plucked him out of college or they had met doing something out at a gay bar or at a gay club, or something like that. And it all sort of fell into place, perfectly in line with little bits, and ideas, and flashes that I had of my own, and that Maya had when we talked about it. So they definitely weren't far off from what I envisioned at the start.

HB: Episode five's title is obviously a reference to the Kesha song, but is it also a cheeky nod to the Adele Lim movie Joy Ride?
JKB: You know what? I wouldn't put it past them. They're smart people, those guys, the writers. So I have a feeling it could definitely be a double meaning there, for sure.

HB: Speaking of Joy Ride, I felt like it was part of a new wave in raunchy Asian American comedies coming to the forefront, of which Fire Island was a part of as well. And I know that Andrew Ahn recently released The Wedding Banquet this year, which I loved.
JKB: Loved it too.

HB: Andrew said that you've joked about a Fire Island sequel, but is there any possibility at all of sequel talks?
JKB: Listen, yeah, I'm going to kill Andrew, that little sh*t stirrer, for putting that out into the universe. But no, listen, I would never close the door on writing a sequel to that movie. It's very special to me, obviously. And I know that it's very special to a lot of people. I will say it again, I don't know that people really want a sequel to this movie. They think they do, but I don't think that many comedy sequels are super successful. And so until I have a really good idea for what the sequel would be, I'm not going to just write a sequel for the sake of there being a sequel out there. And I think too, that if I were to write a sequel, it would be well down the line. I think much like the Sex and the City ladies did, before they came back.

HB: You've got your hands in so many pots as both an actor and a writer. You did voice work in KPop Demon Hunters, you host reality shows, comedy specials. What is the different appeal of each? When do you decide what to pursue?
JKB: Writing is always going to be the baseline passion for me. Anything where I'm able to create and write, and be involved in all the steps of making it to screen, that's definitely going to appeal to me. It's funny you posed the question as though I have complete control and a selection of jobs to choose from at all times, and that's not always the case. I don't have the privilege of always being able to turn down one job because I have a host of other jobs to choose from. So some of it is just by the need to work that I've chosen some of these gigs. But for me, standup is always going to be the north star. Because I see what people say online sometimes, and a lot of people love to attribute my success to DEI, or being part of the diversity push.

And I try not to internalize that. But the thing about standup is that when I'm on stage for an hour, people are either laughing or they're not laughing, and you can't tell me sh*t when I'm up there. People don't force themselves to laugh for an extended hour of time because of woke. It just doesn't happen. And so for me, standup is always going to be this really important outlet for me to remind myself that in that moment, when I'm making those people laugh, I am great at this. And it's a really important grounding presence in my life as an artist.

HB: I won't say that we've moved past the point where Asian Americans have to create their opportunities and jobs, but there is more freedom for Asian American actors and artists, obviously. Do you have a need or want to use a platform like Loot, where you have a regular acting job, to use that to try to write more or launch other roles where you get to be the main character?
JKB: Oh yeah, always. We are certainly not past the point of Asian American creators needing to create their own work in Hollywood. Because again, if I waited for someone to write Fire Island for me, I would be waiting a very, very long time. And while things are better for us now, I definitely don't think that we're at the point now where I can sit back and expect the kind of three-dimensional roles with depth to be written for me. I think all of us really have to put our heads down and get to work and make sure that those parts are being created by us, for us.

In terms of Loot, I'm very happy being an actor on this show. It's so stress-free. For me, I get to show up, have a ton of fun with my friends, be in a really funny show, and occasionally write little alts and jokes and stuff like that that they let me slide in as well. And that's the happiest medium for me. I will let the experts write that show and then hopefully down the line write my own.

HB: What jokes and alts have you written into the show that are favorites?
JKB: Oh, God. I mean, there's a bunch and they're usually at the end of scenes, but I know that for instance, in the premiere episode, “I have to see a production of Waiting for Godot starring Ashley Tisdale and Vanessa Hudgens,” is definitely an alt that I wrote on the day. It's hard to think of all of them over the course of three seasons because there's definitely a lot. They're very generous with allowing us all to improvise a little bit on set.

HB: Is there a fond memory you have on set of improvising and shooting the breeze?
JKB: They always come from the conference room scenes when the entire cast is together sitting around that table. They take forever to shoot those scenes. But by the end of it, we are so loopy because we've been shooting for so long and everything is funny. And as hard as those days are, they're often our favorites because again, we're all together, and  it's impossible not to have a good time and to laugh, and to try and make each other break. You get bored doing the same scene over and over again that many times. So we definitely try and make it interesting for ourselves and each other by making each other laugh a little bit or trying to during those scenes.