King Of The Hill Team Tells All About Recasting Hank's Rival Kahn: 'We Certainly Wanted To Be Authentic'
Hank's next-door nemesis Kahn is back in Hulu's new King of the Hill revival — but you might notice he doesn't exactly sound the same.
Kahn, an immigrant from Laos who loves to needle Hank for being a hillbilly, was voiced by a white actor, Toby Huss, during King of the Hill's original Fox run, which ended in 2009. But for the revival, the role was recast, with The Daily Show's Ronny Chieng (who was born in Malaysia and grew up in Singapore) taking over as Kahn.
Chieng debuts as Kahn in the revival's eighth episode, which sees Kahn and his wife Minh hiding the fact that they got divorced. And having an Asian actor play an Asian character was important to the revival's producers — as was finding a way to bring back Kahn.
"Kahn was such an important character, especially as the foil to Hank, and that representation was important as well," showrunner Saladin Patterson tells TVLine. King of the Hill "was ahead of his time in terms of Asian representation back in the day," he points out, and "we really wanted to maintain that." But "times have changed in terms of our attitudes towards casting, in a good way, and so we certainly wanted to be authentic in who we cast to voice that character."
Ronny Chieng is "such a perfect fit" as Kahn, too, Patterson raves: "He grew up in Singapore and grew up watching King of the Hill." In fact, Chieng told the producers that "King of the Hill was one of the few animated shows from America that the Singapore government would let them watch" because "it had good values." So Chieng "was fond of the show and had an affinity for the characters," and he "stepped into the role of Kahn with love," as well as "a little bit more of a 360-degree point of view of the character that I think he brought to the voice. So we're very, very happy to have him embody Kahn."
Huss, for his part, is gracious about stepping aside to let Chieng take over. "I think it's great," Huss says of the recasting. "We didn't ask the questions back then that we're asking now, and I think we're in a better place as a society asking those questions. 'Who should do this voice?' And if we're uncomfortable with the answer, then let's go ahead and make some changes. So they did, and I'm totally in line with that."
Huss adds that "Ronny is really hilarious" in the role, "and it's going to be fun to watch what he does with Kahn in the future."
And in a bittersweet twist of fate, Huss is still a part of the revival: He takes over as the voice of Dale Gribble, originally played by Johnny Hardwick, who died in 2023. Lauren Tom, who plays Kahn's wife Minh and daughter Connie, says it was "so gratifying that the universe kind of took care of everything, in the sense that Toby's in our family still, playing Johnny's part. It just makes complete sense to us, and we're so happy that it worked out like that."
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