Julie Kim is used to doing it all. Before the Toronto-born, Vancouver-based comic made a name for herself doing sold-out theatre shows with Ronny Chieng and writing for TV’s Run the Burbs and Kim’s Convenience, she made her stand-up start as a “one-time” thing to help further her other careers. At the time, she was working on Toronto’s Bay Street and moonlighting as a grad student, pursuing a PhD in information systems.
“I wanted a challenge,” Kim says, speaking by phone with The Coast. “And I always admired people who were good speakers.”
The challenge didn’t come easily. Kim enrolled in an “intro to stand-up” class where, in hindsight, she figures she would have been voted “the least likely to succeed” by her classmates. “I wasn’t good at it,” she admits. “I didn’t know the difference between a premise and an actual, formed joke.” She stuck with it anyway. The class built toward an open-mic performance at Absolute Comedy, a popular industry hang-out near Yonge and Eglinton Streets in Toronto’s Midtown neighbourhood. Each comic would perform a five-minute set. Kim spent the whole summer working on material—“trying new stuff, working on variations,” she says—until she got better.
Looking back more than 10 years later, with a Canadian Screen Award and shows across Canada, the US and Australia under her belt, Kim calls it a “necessary first summer” for all that has followed in her ascendant comedy career—one that will bring her acerbic wit on issues ranging from race, to parenthood, to gender differences to Halifax this spring. (Kim headlines a show at the Bus Stop Theatre on March 29.)
And as more of the world has discovered Kim’s comedic chops—she sold out four solo shows at Just For Laughs Toronto in 2023 and has shows booked from Ottawa to San Francisco this year—it seems ever-likelier that her star will only get brighter.
From a convenience store to Kim’s Convenience
Julie Kim loves a good sitcom—and not just the ones she’s written for. The daughter of Korean immigrants, she grew up in Toronto watching ‘80s and ‘90s sitcoms on loop in the apartment above her parents’ convenience store. There was “always a laugh track” playing in the home, Kim tells The Coast. Because her parents worked long hours, Kim and her siblings had little oversight as to how many hours they watched TV—or, she adds, what programs they watched. That meant the younger Kims indulged in shows that they “probably were not supposed to be watching,” she says. Those after-school and weekend hours introduced her to Seinfeld. Saturday Night Live. Robin Williams.
“I don’t think I understood all of his comedy,” Kim says of Williams, “but I could tell from the way he was moving and talking that there was a lot going on … And I remember hearing at some point that Robin Williams had a genius IQ.
“So in my head, I associated being a stand-up comedian with being a genius,” she laughs.
Kim says she was never the class clown, but she found comedy had its uses. For one thing, it could diffuse tension. One time, on a cross-border shopping trip to Buffalo, her parents got caught in a lie about how much merchandise they had to declare. Kim’s father “was always very stingy with money—which makes sense,” she says, “because we were poor growing up, and we didn’t have much.” But despite her father’s thriftiness, her mother loved to spoil them. And unbeknownst to Kim’s father, her mother had hatched a plan with her and her siblings to buy whatever they wanted and sneak it into the car. The family secret held until border agents opened the trunk and pulled out “a Nintendo, shoes… all these things,” Kim recalls. Her father was pissed. Kim doesn’t quite remember what she said, but somewhere on the long and tear-filled ride home to Toronto, she made an offhand joke.
“My mom and dad both laughed, and then all the tension was gone,” she says. “And basically it was forgotten.”
The feeling stuck with Kim. And years after that fateful trip to Buffalo, as she went from one open mic to another in Toronto, it would inform her comedic style: Sharp and foul-mouthed, but also full of heart. All the while, Kim kept working on Bay Street—even if, eventually, she left her graduate studies behind. Maintaining a career for so many years “probably made for a slower trajectory in comedy,” Kim says, “but it also made me a well-rounded, full person who has experiences and lots of different kinds of perspectives and interactions and people in her life. And I really think that that has contributed to me being a comic who can be relatable.”
That relatability has not only brought Kim success on stage, but also made her an in-demand television writer. Beyond contributing to CBC’s Kim’s Convenience, she has worked on the suburban-life sitcom Run the Burbs and helped to write and produce Simu Liu’s JUNO Awards hosting gig in 2023. It also landed her a development deal with Pier 21 Films for a comedy series of her own. (Kim says the project, a workplace comedy about a doctor at a walk-in clinic, is still in the works.)
Never afraid of another challenge, Kim is preparing to launch her own podcast next month. She’s aware of the comedian-turned-podcaster cliche—which is to say, don’t expect hours-long conversations with other comics when the show launches. Instead, Kim envisions “something short and sweet” that will delve into stories from her life.
“Really, it’s about interactions with people,” Kim tells The Coast.
That includes digging into microaggressions and awkward moments of conflict—things she expects “a lot of women and a lot of people of colour” can relate to.
“I’m the kind of person who, if somebody mumbles something behind me, I will go up to them and say, ‘Sorry, what did you say?’” Kim laughs. “I’m not trying to be cringe, but I do believe in, you know, justice and making sense of a situation and making it awkward. I have no problem making it awkward.”
Kim returns to Halifax
When Kim returns to Halifax this spring, it will mark a full-circle moment for the comedian: Her first-ever comedy festival performance came 10 years ago at the Ha!ifax Comedy Fest. She also remembers performing in the city while she was pregnant with her daughter, who has since become a frequent source of inspiration for her stand-up. This year, however, will be Kim’s first headlining gig in the city—and she’s partnered with production group MRG Live for her tour.
“I’m really excited to be back,” Kim says. “I’ve heard Halifax has changed a lot.”
Julie Kim performs in Halifax on Saturday, March 29, at the Bus Stop Theatre. Tickets are available here.
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This article appears in Dec 19, 2024 – Jan 31, 2025.