LOS ANGELES — Three years ago, Arden Cho was ready to walk away from acting. He got his first lead role in the Netflix series “Partner Track”, but it was canceled after one season. His heart was broken.
His agent won’t let him go. “He refused to say ‘you’re done.’ She just kept sending me things,” Cho said. “She just kept saying, ‘Look, I know you’re not auditioning. I know you’re done, but I think you’ll like this.'”
Now, Cho is working on multiple projects after voicing lead character Rumi in Netflix’s animated summertime sensation “Kpop Demon Hunters,” which became the most-streamed film ever on the platform — and its soundtrack dominated the pop charts, spawning “Golden” and “Soda Pop.”
“I’m very prepared,” Cho said. “It feels like this is my golden moment.”
Now, Cho is one of The Associated Press’ Breakthrough Entertainers of 2025. Time seems almost cosmic. Netflix announced that “Kpop Demon Hunters” was its most watched film on August 26 – exactly three years after “Partner Track” began streaming. Cho said, “It was like a gift from God, hey, you lost something, but I gave you something better.”
Cho – who does not sing in the film – says she sees her own insecurities in the character, a K-pop idol and monster hunter who loses her voice. And she’s ready to join more stories from the world created by Maggie Kang.
“I hope there will be sequels, I hope there will be prequels, I hope every little Asian girl and boy will feel like they’re seen and feel like they deserve to be the main character. I hope it will open doors for more Korean and American collaboration projects,” she says. “I hope that… Rumi gets to learn a little more about her mother and father. I hope to learn how HUNTR/X became HUNTR/X. And I hope I can save Jinu.”
The film has sparked a new wave of worldwide interest in Korean food, culture and K-pop idol life, with Cho, his co-star and Hunter/X’s singer-songwriters joining in with the film’s promotional tour to Hollywood awards season.
Cho said, “I feel very fortunate to be able to have these conversations because I’m proud to be American, but at the same time, I’m also proud to be Korean.”
Growing up in Texas and Minnesota, she didn’t think much about racial identity. But while attending college at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, something changed. She recalled, “I realized that was the first time I was like, Oh, people look at me and don’t think I’m an American.” “And it was interesting because I realized at that time, there are two ways to look at it. You can just go crazy and say, ‘Oh, I hate that we don’t have representation, I hate that people don’t see us, I hate that people don’t see our stories,’ or you can say, ‘I’m going to try.'”
So he tried. In 2007, she moved to Los Angeles. “It was hard to leave my friends and family behind, it was hard to stay positive and have a thick skin. I still don’t have a thick skin,” she said.
She found success as superpowered Kira Yukimura in MTV’s “Teen Wolf” series beginning in 2014, but struggled to find meaty roles before “Partner Track.”
For the legal drama, she was eventually number 1 on the call sheet. But she says, “I blinked and it happened and I was devastated.”
Cho said, “I’m kind of this ‘I want to take care of everything and everyone’ type of personality. And I want to do it all. And so I think that whole experience kind of went where it was over before it even started.” “I lost my moment because I was so busy trying to make it right, trying to make it right by myself. And in a weird way, like, it reminds me a lot of Rumi.”
Then “Kpop Demon Hunters” came to him. The film’s producer Michelle Wong said that she and the other filmmakers narrowed the finalists down to six actors, then conducted a blind “listen test” to choose the voice of Rumi. Cho was the unanimous choice.
Wong said, “Our film is dramatic, it’s action, it’s comedy, it’s got everything. The talent has to be at the highest level, as you know, Arden obviously embodies all of that. She has a great range.” “I hope it opens doors for her because she deserves it.”
Cho celebrated her 40th birthday in August as “Demon Hunters” was at the height of its popularity.
“I think for women, sometimes people are shy about saying that because they think 40 is too old,” she said. “But I’ve never felt younger and better about myself. I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin. And I want to go around and tell everyone that because I hope it gives people hope that age really is just a number.”
For more information about the 2025 Class of Breakthrough Entertainers, visit /hub/ap-breakthrough-entertainers.
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