Kathleen Kim (Ji-Young, Elena)
Kathleen Kim is an actress, TV producer, and puppeteer who performs the role of Ji-Young, the first Asian-American Muppet character on Sesame Street, and Elena, Julia’s mother.
Kathleen Kim is a puppeteer, producer, voice actor and public speaker based in NYC. She was working as a television producer when she rediscovered her childhood love for puppets through a puppetry comedy improv class.
In 2014, she was accepted into a 3-day Sesame Workshop puppetry workshop where she learned monitor puppetry from Martin Robinson, Matt Vogel and Peter Linz. From there she was brought on as a background puppeteer and puppeteer assist across Season 46, 48 and on the TV movie special Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas. Then in 2017 when Sesame Workshop launched its first Puppetry Mentorship Program, Kim was one of four new performers chosen to grow into the next generation of Sesame puppeteers. In 2018 she received her first recurring role as Elena, Julia’s mother. And in 2021, she had the great privilege of developing and then taking on the role of Ji-Young, the first ever Asian-American Muppet character. Ji-Young was introduced on Sesame’s AAPI special “See Us Coming Together,” for which Kim received an Emmy nomination as consulting producer.
Some of Kathleen’s other puppetry credits include Helpsters on Apple TV+, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens as Toe-Knee, SNL, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, Mo Willems’ The Pigeon Explains, The Today Show and Brett Goldstein: The Second Best Night of My Life.
