How Devin Kawaoka Really Feels About All That Dr. Kai Hate in Chicago Med
The actor totally didn't see the fandom's negative reaction coming.
Sympathies and antipathies of a fandom often work in mysterious ways, taking the show's writers and actors by total surprise. And sometimes, a series' cast member may remain totally oblivious to what the audience's reaction to their character might be — that is, until they actually experience it.
This is what happened to Chicago Med's Devin Kawaoka, who was apparently shocked by fans' attitude to his character, Dr. Kai Tanaka-Reed.
You see, Dr. Kai is an example of an irritating, cocky, overconfident character, who is quite intentionally written to be this way. Not only does he treat his patients rather coldly — which is perhaps unpleasant but not unexpected from a surgeon — Kai also does lots of other annoying things, speaking out of turn, correcting more experienced doctors, and often overstepping the boundaries of his training.
What's worse, Dr. Kai once nearly killed one of the patients, and after another doctor saved this person from death, he dared to file an HR complaint against that doctor, accusing him of disrespectful behavior.
In short, Devin Kawaoka's character is a prick, and it wasn't hard to predict that the fandom of Chicago Med would hate him. However, it turns out that the actor himself did not foresee such a reaction. Here's what he said in an interview with Tell-Tale TV:
'It was shocking. I think it was more shocking than I thought it would be in the sense of how the Chicago universe and fans responded to it [...] To hear people really hate on him was incredible and humbling.'
As Devin explained, he perceived his character as a socially awkward perfectionist, a sort of an 'irritating genius' who overcompensates for his lack of communication skills. Though this isn't an uncommon character trope, it sort of requires the character to actually have genius, and this is clearly not the case with Dr. Kai.
However, Kawaoka does believe that his character might have to be knocked down a peg and reconsider his attitude. So actually, there is hope that Dr. Kai is going to become less irritating and hateable in the future.
The next episode of Chicago Med airs on May 3, 2023.
Source: Tell-Tale TV