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‘The Interview’ actor wishes best for N. Korean people

January 21, 2015
(Courtesy of Sony Pictures)

(Courtesy of Sony Pictures)

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) — Randall Park, the Korean American actor who played North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the Sony Pictures comedy, “The Interview,” said Wednesday he hopes “whatever is best” for the North Korean people will happen.

Park made the remark at a news conference promoting a new ABC TV series, “Fresh Off The Boat,” in response to a request for comment on a plan by anti-Pyongyang activists in South Korea to send DVDs of “The Interview” to the communist nation.

“I don’t know enough about the politics there to know what that means for the people, you know, but I do hope that whatever is best for the people will happen,” Park said during the news conference at the National Press Building in Washington.

Park declined to elaborate, saying, “I don’t know what having that movie out there will do.”

The Sony film tells the story of two American journalists who land an interview with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang but are then recruited by the CIA to assassinate the young dictator. The movie was made hugely popular by North Korea’s attempts to stop its release, including its alleged cyber-attack on Sony.

Pyongyang has flatly denied any responsibility for the hacking attack, calling U.S. accusations an “unfounded rumor,” though the regime condemned the movie as the “most undisguised” sponsoring of terrorism and lauded the cyber-attack as a “righteous deed.”

Asked if he needs a security guard, Park said he does not need one.

Park, who was born in Los Angeles to Korean parents, said he is “glad that the dust has settled on the movie and we’re moving on from that because I’m so excited about this show (“Fresh Off The Boat”) and hoping that people tune in.”

The new series, set in the 1990s, tells the story of an Asian American family that moved to the primarily white suburb of Orlando, Florida, from Washington, D.C. Park plays the protagonist, Louis Huang, in the series, the first Asian-American series to air on network television in more than 20 years.