Arden Cho and May Hong are fresh off a trip to New York Comic-Con, where the stars of the smash animated hit KPop Demon Hunters got to sign autographs for the first time together.
“I liked getting to borrow pink markers from Arden,” Hong jokes, laughing alongside Cho on Entertainment Weekly’s The Awardist podcast.
Cho says she was struck by the wide range of ages of the movie’s fans. “You have like little kids and adults and families,” she explains. “One of my favorite parts is just meeting families saying that they’ve been following me since Teen Wolf or YouTube days, and now they’re watching the movie with their kids, and they’re like, ‘Thank you for the added cool points, because I knew you before they knew you.'”
“Cool” is probably an understatement for what fans think of the Netflix animated musical, produced by Sony Pictures Animation. Less than three months after its June 20 debut, the movie became the most-watched title of all time on Netflix, surpassing season 1 of Squid Game. The soundtrack became the first in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 to feature four of its songs in the top 10, and the song “Golden” was No. 1 on the Hot 100 eight weeks in a row, eventually unseated by Taylor Swift’s new album.
Zoey, (voiced by Ji-Young Yoo), Rumi (Arden Cho), and Mira (May Hong) in ‘KPop Demon Hunters’.
Netflix
The movie, directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Applehans, centers on a K-pop girl group, Huntr/x — comprised of Rumi (Cho), Mira (Hong), and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) — which is a disguise for their more important jobs as demon hunters.
Cho’s first audition — way back in August 2022 — was for Celine, Rumi’s foster mother and a former demon hunter as part of the group called “Sunlight Sisters” alongside Rumi’s mom, who died during childbirth. Six months later, though, she got a callback to read for Rumi — but she was hesitant.
“I was like, isn’t Rumi the lead?” she recalls thinking at the time. “For a very long time, I had a hard time being like, Oh, I’m right for Rumi. And I don’t know if it’s because I had told myself that, maybe I’m too old for Rumi, or maybe I’m not K-pop idol enough. And I had known that they had auditioned a lot of very talented actors and singers, so I think I definitely had a bit of imposter syndrome.”
Once she got past that, though, it was all about diving into Rumi’s story. In addition to being a demon hunter — twist! — the Huntr/x lead singer is half-demon herself. Ashamed of who she really is, she has hidden her true identity from those closest to her, except Celine. It’s something Cho related to on a deeply personal level.
Jinu (voice by Ahn Hyo-seop) and Rumi (Arden Cho) in ‘KPop Demon Hunters’.
Netflix
“The Asian culture, especially the Korean culture, is so big on only showing your best, never showing your flaws, always being perfect, working so hard. You gotta be smiling, you gotta be perfect,” she says. “I related with Rumi so much in her relationship with Celine and what she felt like she had to do, or what she had to sort of carry on her own. … Hiding such a big part of who she is and her identity, in a weird way, as a Korean American in America, I felt like being Asian was considered a handicap, or being Asian was not a good thing.”
Looking back, she wishes, instead of being “embarrassed of my culture of private about it,” she had exerted more confidence, which she has found thanks to this movie.
“If somebody said my lunch was gross. I should have been like, ‘You’re gross.’ But I don’t know why, me as a kid, if someone said I was gross, I went and ate in the bathroom,” she recalls. “Voicing Rumi and kind of walking through what she goes through in this journey, it was, in an odd way, healing for me as well.”
Check out more from EW’s The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year’s best in TV, movies, and more.
Mira in ‘KPop Demon Hunters’; May Hong in Los Angeles in June 2025.
Netflix; Alberto E. Rodriguez/GettyÂ
While Hong confirms she also read for all three Huntr/x girls in her audition, she says she knew just from the few script pages she was given, “I’m so Mira,” she says, laughing. “She is me. I am her.”
The more rebellious one of the group, Mira is a great friend and source of strength for those around her.
“She’s rooting for the underdog or protecting people that she feels like can’t protect themselves and just really using her pain as strength to help others,” Hong says. It’s that pain that she hopes to explore in a sequel. “I’m so curious about why Mira grew up to be the way that she is and the missteps or the pain of what she endured with her family and how that informed her value system.”
You can listen to Cho and Hong’s full interview on The Awardist below, including what Cho would like to see in the next movie; and EW Sr. Editor Joyce Eng joins me to talk about Diane Keaton‘s legacy, and One Battle After Another star Chase Infiniti switching categories to go lead.