Appa and A Giant Alien
Paul Rugg and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee
Welcome to the Quarantine Creatives newsletter, a companion to my podcast of the same name. After a long, serious stretch for our country, I was ready to have some fun, and both interviews this week delivered on that. I spoke to two different Pauls, one that brings to life a giant alien, and another that plays a beloved Korean father in Toronto.
At the bottom of the newsletter is a personal update from me as well, so make sure you stick around until the end.
Episode 72- Paul Rugg
On Monday’s show, I spoke with Paul Rugg, who is a writer, voice actor, and as of more recently, a puppeteer. Paul provides the voice and some puppeteering for the alien talk show host Ned on the Jim Henson show Earth to Ned, which is now streaming on Disney+. Ned is obsessed with celebrity culture, and he brings many big name stars aboard his ship for interviews. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the trailer:
As you can tell, Ned is an incredibly complex Henson creature, and it takes six puppeteers all working different parts of the body to bring him to life. Paul provides Ned’s voice and controls his mouth using a special rig. There is another puppeteer providing large core body movements, one controlling Ned’s two front arms, a performer on the back left hand, another on the back right hand, and somebody controlling the eyes by remote control. Paul described to me the challenge of bringing Ned to life:
“As far as the six puppeteers doing Ned being able to be one organic character, that just came with time. And it was really cool to see. It was like ‘oh my gosh, look! We’re all this one character and it’s actually working. I guess we have a job for a while.’ That was a lot of fun, and dangerous too.”
Both the eyes and mouth are animatronic, operated by remote control about 20 feet away from the puppet. Paul brings his background in improv comedy, writing, and doing character voices to the show, however learning the complex puppeteering was a big challenge. It turns out that making Ned talk involves much more than just opening and closing the mouth:
“I have what they call a Waldo, that’s a Henson term, and it’s basically this hand rig that’s got all these different motions to it. It’s got up-down, left-right, backward-forward. And when I move it in that way, I can control the lip curl, like bringing the lips together to make an ‘ooh,’ bringing the lips out to make an ‘eee,’ making them wide, there’s a tongue thing in there. And then to finesse it even more, the finger tips, you can make an ‘f’ shape, you can make a ‘p,’ an ‘oh.’ It’s doing that combination as you speak and it looks like he’s talking.”
The guest interview segments on Earth to Ned are fully improvised just like they would be on a real talk show. Paul described to me the intense focus it takes to perform in that environment:
“It did feel like driving a race car because not only is [the puppeteering] happening, but the producers are also talking in my ear saying ‘oh, make sure you don’t forget this.’ So I’m dealing with that, I’m trying to think of something funny to say, I’m trying to listen, and I’m trying to make sure I keep the interview on theme.”
Brian Henson, Jim Henson’s son, created the show and brought some unconventional approaches to every step in the process, starting with auditioning:
“He lets all the other auditioners see the person auditioning in front of them, which is super intimidating, but it’s amazing because everyone starts suggesting in this very collegiate, very team way. You’re just surrounded by these creative people that just want it to be great.”
Paul was also a writer and performer on some of the classic Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1990s like Animaniacs and Freakazoid!. These shows, along with Tiny Toon Adventures, were all produced by Steven Spielberg. Knowing that this was also the era when he was directing huge blockbusters like Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List, I was curious how involved he actually was in the day to day aspects of these animated programs. Paul helped clarify Steven’s role in those shows:
“We would just start writing, and once we were happy with the script, those scripts would go right to Steven no matter where he was, whether he was in Warsaw, Poland or doing whatever. Within a day, always within a day, always, we would get notes. He was always reading, always suggesting. You know, really liking what we were doing, and just that was so encouraging. I remember the first time I ever got a fax from him on a script that I had written, I think I called my parents, I think I faxed it to my wife, I think I ran it through the hallways.”
Paul shares a ton of other interesting stories in the full interview about working on both Earth to Ned and for Warner animation in the 90s. Take a listen- it’s a fun one!
Episode 73- Paul Sun-Hyung Lee
On Thursday, I spoke with another Paul, this time Canadian actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee. He stars as Appa, the patriarch of the Kim family on the CBC comedy Kim’s Convenience, which streams on Netflix around the world. My wife and I discovered the show in the early days of the pandemic, and it was a show that kept us smiling through the spring. Season four of Kim’s ended with several big cliffhangers, and we have been eagerly awaiting season five, although the timing of COVID-19 put the show in serious jeopardy, as Paul explained:
“We didn’t even know if we were going to go again because we usually start filming around May, and around that time was kind of the height of the first wave. So our season got pushed. It was seriously up in the air, like are we going to do a season five or is it going to get scrapped because of COVID?”
As the pandemic dragged on with no end in sight, the producers of Kim’s Convenience began to explore at what it would take to return safely to work. They looked at production models from around the world of shows that had returned and borrowed best practices from what worked, while making modifications to the safety protocol where necessary. They ultimately were able to return and safely shoot season five towards the end of last year, although it was far from normal. Paul described the differences in filming this season:
“The cast got tested twice a week. The crew had a separate entrance from the cast. Access to the set proper was limited to departments that absolutely had to be on set like camera crew, sound department. The actors had to take care of our own final touches for final makeup and hair. Everything was broken down into piecemeal. Of course the PPE. Crew had to wear PPE the entire time they were on set. Not only masks but face shields. There were hand sanitizing stations everywhere.”
In the end, the season was a success, even with all the challenges. Paul described why he thinks things went so smoothly:
“Everybody did it for each other. The only reason we were successful in shooting season five and not losing a single day to COVID was the fact that people followed the rules and we did it for each other. We did it to keep each other safe. It wasn’t just following the rules on set, it was following the rules off set. That meant not having people over or extending your bubble to somebody outside. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever have to do, but we did it, and that’s such a huge accomplishment in this day in age.”
I know that quote is describing a TV show going back to work, but I can’t help but think that there’s a bigger lesson there for how society approaches fighting COVID. The rules are in place for the betterment of everybody and the more that we abide by them, the sooner we will be on the other side of this.
Kim’s Convenience is a show about the experience of Korean immigrants in Canada, which also includes characters that immigrated to Toronto from India and China. From an American’s point of view, I think of the U.S. as a country of immigrants and the “American Dream” being a uniquely American attribute, but I know from watching Kim’s and from my own travels how false that can be.
I asked Paul about this, and he placed a lot of the credit of selling the American Dream on the entertainment industry, which broadcasts “American exceptionalism” to the world. He also pointed out that Canada being a part of the British Commonwealth may have instilled a more reserved culture that does not openly boast. He elaborated on how the “Immigrant Dream” is not unique to the U.S.:
“Every country in the world has immigrants. Every country has stories of people who moved away from their homelands to try to make a better life for themself and their children in a land that has opportunity. And America isn’t the only place that had opportunity, it’s just these are the stories that we heard the most about because the media was so strong. I think that’s why Kim’s resonates so much all around the world, because there are immigrants everywhere. And the struggle of leaving your homeland and raising your kids in a foreign land, and still having the same familial problems that you would anywhere else, people see that and they recognize that in themselves.”
Paul also had a role in The Mandalorian, the Star Wars inspired series streaming on Disney+. He has been a Star Wars cosplayer for years, constructing his own costumes like the ones he posted on his Instagram (above). Dave Filoni, one of the produces of The Mandalorian is a big Kim’s fan and wrote a role with Paul in mind.
Paul was thrilled to be included in the series given his fandom, and it turns out that his experience as a cosplayer came in handy. He told me about getting fitted for his costume for the shoot, where the wardrobe team was having trouble getting the details on the ejection harness just right:
“They didn’t know how to construct it so it looked like it did in this reference photo that they had. After futzing around, I made an offer and said ‘hey look guys, I don’t want to overstep, but I’ve actually built this costume at home and I have it, and I have meticulously curated photos of how this ejection harness is not only put together but how it’s attached to the costume. Do you want to use those for your reference?’ And they were like ‘oh yes, please!’ So as a cosplayer, to use the knowledge that I got from all these other cosplayers and to use that to help these trained professionals was an amazing full circle event.”
In the full interview, we go deep on Kim’s Convenience, The Mandalorian, and collecting toys and props. I had such a great time talking with Paul.
What’s Next
I announced at the end of Thursday’s show that I am going to be taking a break from the podcast and newsletter for a little bit. When this show launched last May, I imagined that the pandemic might begin to slow by the summer and felt like I only had a narrow window to tell these stories of how creative folks have stayed busy and adapted. Because of this, I set an aggressive release schedule of two episodes per week, figuring this project might last for six to eight weeks and I would be lucky to record 15 episodes.
With every new headline, from the killing of George Floyd, to the botched pandemic response that allowed the virus to spread out of control, to the contentious election season, I felt a renewed sense of purpose in delivering this show twice a week and to not let up from the gas pedal.
Now that there is a new administration in place, I do feel like I can finally exhale, but I also realize just how much I have been running on adrenaline for the last year or so. What started as a short summer project has grown into nearly 75 shows that have kept me busy for nearly nine months. However, I have also not had much time to focus on other projects since this show launched.
As we are far from the finish line on COVID and returning to normal, there are still stories that I want to share and document from this strange time, so I don’t think I’ll be away for too long.
Before I head out, I wanted to say thank you to all of you that have supported the podcast and newsletter over the last nine months. It has truly meant so much to me, and I look forward to reconnecting with you all soon, once I’ve had a little time to rest, recharge, and come back with a renewed sense of purpose. Stay safe!
If you have questions, comments, thoughts, ideas, or anything else that you’d like to share, please feel free to email me anytime: hracela@mac.com
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