Percy Jackson & The Olympians, Interior Chinatown and the upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot all share one vital common denominator: Vivian Kwok.

The vice president of casting at 20th Television, Kwok graduated from the University of Southern California with an international relations degree and hoped to work for a global corporation. When a sorority advisor told her about an opening at 20th Television, Kwok jumped at the chance to be the assistant to the head of research and marketing. In 2019, she was running the department.

Now a veteran casting executive, Kwok’s impressive resume includes Disney+’s Percy Jackson & The Olympians, Hulu’s upcoming comedy series, Chad Powers, starring Glenn Powell and the much-anticipated Buffy reboot from director Chloé Zhao and producer Gail Berman.

Below, Kwok shares with the Television Academy her approach to casting and advocacy for Asian American faces in television.

Television Academy: What made you decide on a career in entertainment?

Vivian Kwok: I’m an immigrant kid. I was born in Hong Kong and I moved to California with my parents when I was five. I grew up loving popular culture; I spent a lot of time watching television after school because that’s what the kids at school were talking about. A lot of my family was international, so I would fly back to Hong Kong to visit relatives every Christmas. What always kept us close was the movies and TV that we would watch. Every Christmas, we’d watch Home Alone together and How I Met Your Mother. We would talk about Friends. Even if we grew up in different cultures, spoke different languages in school and dressed differently, TV was one of the things we always could talk about. Ultimately, that’s what drew me to it.

What was working in research like?

When Nielsen ratings still mattered, I was the girl who’d wake up at 5 a.m. and send out the ratings blast to everybody. Everyone would talk about it. They would call me and ask “What do those numbers mean?” Or, “How did Modern Family do last night?” Whenever we shot a pilot, we would bring it into a focus group. We would ask them questions about how they reacted to the characters, did they like these actors, what were their reasons? So I got a really intimate insight into the relationship audiences had with television and how they perceived certain actors.

So what made you move from research to casting?

I got randomly paired, through a Fox mentorship program, with Sharon Klein, who’s now the head of casting for Disney Entertainment Television. She opened my eyes to other parts of the business. Casting was the beginning of the whole development process — and research was at the end — so I didn’t see anything until everything was cast, shot and edited.

At the time, Disney was buying our arm of Fox. Stephanie Levinson, (executive vice president of casting for 20th Television), my current mentor and boss, was starting up her own department. She pulled me aside and asked if I wanted to join them in casting; I jumped at the opportunity.

The cast of Fresh Off the Boat / Photo: ABC

What show did you start with?

One of the first shows I got to cover was Fresh Off the Boat, which was really meaningful to me. Growing up, I watched a lot of television shows and nobody looked like me. Every once in a while, there was that one token character. In Fresh Off the Boat, I got to sit at the table read, and the whole cast looked just like me. Immediately, there was this sense that I had found the right place for me in this business. My early career really prepared me to be in this position — and in a decision-making seat.

How does your approach to casting differ from the way others might approach it?

I tap into what I’ve learned about what audiences respond to when they’re watching certain actors or characters. I really love working with creative people. Also, having worked at 20th my entire career, I look at what’s the best business opportunity for the studio. How do we make sure we make a great show, be representative of what the showrunner wants to say, while also having a cultural impact for the larger community?

Can you share some of your duties and responsibilities?

We introduce showrunners to casting directors that we work with. The studio delivers shows to many platforms for the Walt Disney Co. and outside and, oftentimes, the platforms have different needs and audiences. So understanding what their needs are, and communicating with my counterparts, those are really big parts of my job. On top of that, it’s negotiating deals with agents and managers to make sure that the actors get all the things they need to perform their roles. It’s really fun and exciting every day.

What determines which shows you deal with?

In terms who gets assigned to which show, Stephanie has a very human, talent-friendly approach. We raise our hands all the time. We did Interior Chinatown, and I raised my hand for that. But oftentimes, it’s based on relationships. Over time, I’ve worked with a lot of producers on a few of their series. For example, Gail Berman produced the Malcolm In the Middle reboot that we’re about to launch for Disney+ [in 2026], and she’s also doing the new Buffy reboot on Hulu.

Talk about the reboot of the Buffy series on Hulu and your approach to casting there.

We’re really early stages. This universe and this fandom is so special. We want to make sure that we honor the original series as best we can. Our new showrunners [Nora and Lila Zuckerman] have their own vision — and we have a really incredible director, Chloé Zhao. We’re partnering on this with our sister studio, Searchlight TV, and we really just want to support their vision on how to bring this new iteration to life.

So how did the new Slayer get on your radar?

Robert Ulrich is our casting director. He’s a wizard, in terms of finding new talent. We have relationships with all the talent agencies across the business; they’ll put their actors on tape and then we watch a lot of auditions. I think he watched thousands of auditions. Ryan Kiera Armstrong [who was recently cast as the reboot’s lead character] just came out as someone really special. Everyone was excited about her. That’s the best part about casting — when you see that little nugget in the very beginning, that sparkle in someone’s audition, and it’s undeniable.

How often do new stars pop in the casting process?

It doesn’t happen on every show or in every role. But every once in a while, there’s an undeniability about someone’s audition. It was the same when we cast Walker Scobell on Percy Jackson. That kid came in, there was just something special about him that every single person who watched it thought, “That kid’s a star.” The cast swept the (Children and Family Emmys) and accepted a bunch of awards. To see them win all these accolades, that’s truly the most exciting and gratifying part of what we do in casting.

Talk about the limited-run reboot of Malcolm on Disney+. How challenging was it to get the gang back together again?

Everyone was doing something different. It had been 25 years since the original series and it really was [series creator] Linwood Boomer, [Boomer’s wife and producing partner] Tracy Katsky and Bryan Cranston all coming together. And Gail Berman saying, “We really want to do this.”

The cast of Malcolm In the Middle reunite / Photo: Frankie Muniz

They really leveraged their relationships and made phone calls to get the rest of the [cast] really excited. My part was just to help them and talk to their managers. There are some new characters that are introduced, because we’re in this new phase of Malcolm’s life, so that was really fun. It was fun to be able to work with the producers and figure out who’s going to be Malcolm’s daughter. Does he have a partner in life? What does his home life look like now?

Keeley Karsten was cast to play Malcolm’s daughter, Leah. How did you land on Keeley for the role?

We talked a lot about who that character was going to be. We brought in actresses to read with Frankie Muniz, who was coming [to casting sessions] in between practicing for his racing schedule. It was really fun to revisit the show after so long. Being a fan of the original show, and now being able to meet everybody and work with them, it was really cool.

Some were no longer in the business?

Kwok: The actor who played Malcolm’s brother, Dewey — Erik Per Sullivan — wasn’t in the business anymore, so they made the decision to recast him. That was a fun exercise: How do you age up Dewey, but also make sure that he still has the essence of the original character? We’re shooting the reboot in Vancouver, and our Canadian casting director did a really big search across the country. She found Caleb Ellsworth-Clark, a guy who Eric could have grown up to be.

How have you advocated for Asian American voices and faces in television?

 I’ve been so lucky to have worked on Fresh Off the Boat, Doogie Kamealoha on Disney+ and Interior Chinatown. A couple of years ago, President Biden invited us to screen American Born Chinese at the White House, and I was four weeks post-partum. My bosses called and said, “We don’t know if you want to travel.” And I said, “Yes, my husband’s watching the baby. I’m flying to D.C.! I’m never going to get another opportunity to be with our actors at the White House.” As a Chinese American, I’ve never felt prouder. Everyone on the cast — and the producers — looked like me and we were stepping into the most important house in this country to represent our studio, our show and the larger Asian American community.

So it’s a truly personal mission for you.

Constantly. When I’m in my job, I think about identity. I think about advocating for people who look like me. I think about the larger AAPI diaspora and how do we tell our stories, and how do we support our writers. I don’t write. I don’t act. But my job is to help hire people who do those things. I don’t take that lightly at all. I make sure that, at every opportunity, Asian Americans are represented if it makes sense for that story, that show or that episode.

This article has been edited for length and clarity.