‘Hawaii Five-0’ Actor Reveals How Contract Dispute Impacted Relationship With Co-Stars

Former Hawaii Five-0 actor Daniel Dae Kim recently spoke out about his contract dispute with the series and revealed that it impacted his relationship with his co-stars. Kim was one of the original ensemble stars of the show, along with Alex O’Loughlin, Scott Caan, and Grace Park. However, ahead of Season 8, Kim and Park lobbied for pay raises that would make them equal with their co-stars but an agreement could not be reached between the actors and CBS, so they both exited.

In a new interview with Vulture, Kim opened up about the situation and provided some insight into things from his perspective, which involved him taking less money for Hawaii Five-0 than he was making on Lost, which he’d also starred in since the pilot episode. “One thing that has never really properly been reported is the amount of pay cut I took to do Hawaii Five-0 from Lost,” he said. “It was drastic, and it was never made up.” Kim went on to say that before he and Park left the series, he’d made a plea for the two of them to earn what they felt they deserved.

“Make us all equal. Make us all the ensemble that I thought we always were, and get me back to where I was with Lost,” he said, “I didn’t think that was an unreasonable position to take. It was very clear and simple. I was very transparent about it with my castmates, with my showrunner, with the studio from the start. It became much more dramatic because of the way that it didn’t come together.”

Kim eventually got around to offering a thought on how the situation affected his relationship with his co-stars. “I think any time you have an ensemble of actors, everyone’s objectives are unique and individual,” he said. “So it’s hard for me to collectively say whether they were allies in this … I do know that the way things got spun by the end changed my relationships with them.” Vulture asked Kim if he could elaborate more on what he meant, to which he replied, “I’ve spoken more about it here than I ever have, so… “

In a statement at the time that Kim and Park formally left the show, CBS issued a statement saying that it “tried very hard to keep” both actors with “significant salary increases.” Hawaii Five-0 ran for another three seasons afterward, eventually ending with Season 10 in 2020. Currently, Kim is starring in the NBC medical drama New Amsterdam in a recurring role as Dr. Cassian Shin.

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