‘Hawaii Five-0’ star Daniel Dae Kim happy to live and work in paradise

TORONTO — Regular viewers of Hawaii Five-0 can’t be blamed for thinking the beautiful islands are crawling with violent criminals.

“We give the impression that Hawaii is the most dangerous place on the planet,” concedes Daniel Dae Kim, who stars as Chin Ho Kelly on the popular series.

The 45-year-old married father of two actually considers himself lucky to have spent the past decade living in the tropical paradise while working on Lost and Hawaii Five-0.

“It happened to be a coincidence that another show was coming in at the same time that Lost was ending,” the South Korean actor told Global News, “and it happened to be good enough to stay on the air.”

In both series, Kim shared scenes with Canadian talent — Alberta-born Evangeline Lilly on Lost and B.C.-raised Grace Park on Hawaii Five-0.

“I guess the Canadians are the keys to success,” he jokes.

Kim said he looks forward to getting scripts in which his character is put in jeopardy or has to deal with a personal relationship.

“That’s the stuff that’s the most fun for me,” he explained. “The ‘crime of the week’ element of the show has its own appeal but the character stuff, for me, is the stuff I feel like I’ve been trained to do.”

Kim also believes viewers want more than action scenes and eye candy.

“The relationships, when they’re more fully fleshed out, I think they’re interesting and I think they inform the cases.”

One relationship on the show that gets plenty of scrutiny is that of detectives Danny Williams (Scott Caan) and Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin).

“It’s a bromance in every sense of the word,” says Kim. “There are websites that have alluded to that and have been pretty graphic about their relationship.”

Will Danny and Steve ever hook up?

“I think so,” Kim replies with a laugh.

Hawaii Five-0 airs Friday nights on Global.