The actresss heart-shattering turn inMinariwill likely get an Oscar nod.
Shes been doing this too long to care.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
This wouldnt havehappened in Korea,she thought.
Imagine keeping Meryl Streep baking in the Oklahoma heat for four-to-five hours in the middle of July.
But the force field of celebrity was gone.
On the set ofMinari,she was an old Korean lady.
A Far East nobody, she tells me, taking a long drag from a slim white e-cigarette.
As in a classic American tale, she would have to start from scratch.
She [left] a good life in Korea.
It felt like it was happening all over again.
They had little time for preproduction, which meant everything had to happen yesterday.
The heat was unforgiving, the pace unrelenting.
They worried about Youns health.
Chung felt the pangs of filial guilt and went to her trailer and apologized.
My first mistake in this whole situation is that I met you, she told him.
My second mistake is that I liked you.
Shes on her e-cig and just starts laughing, he remembers.
The thing about reverence is it makes you soft.
In Korea, everyone calls Younsunsaengnim,which translates to teacher or master.
In Korea, nobody will correct me.
In Tulsa, Im nobody to them.
I need to prove myself with my acting.
Meanwhile, the Korean press is vibrating at the prospect of another historic Oscar.
Youn blamesBong Joon Hofor all the commotion.
IfBong Joon Ho hadnt won, then Korean people wouldnt be all that interested, she says.
Youns performance as Soonja is clear and direct, like sunlight.
She liked its honesty.
They began meeting regularly to piece the character together.
Chung didnt want a grandmother reminiscent of his own, which is exactly what Youn hoped to hear.
Soonja is a modern woman who shrugs off the familiar constraints of female domesticity.
She understands hes tough and can thrive in this land.
The seeds she sows eventually sprout across the riverbank.
To truly appreciate the metaphor, you have to taste minari.
As a kid, I thought it was just the Korean word for watercress.
Americans often refer to it as an herb, but really its more of a wild green san-namul.
I hated the flavor: peppery, raw, vegetal.
Despite my aversion, the plant grew at an astonishing pace, spreading far past its plastic rim.
Her role mostly consisted of standing next to an emcee and handing things out.
I was not a standard Korean beauty, she says.
You could say she bores through the screen.
Kim pursues his ideas so obsessively as to almost appear self-critical.
Kim was eccentric and exacting.
Youn hated working with him.
They would eat, have tea, meet each others families.
He would observe her gestures and mannerisms, which he would then direct her to do on set.
She felt it was abusive but also understood that he wanted to elicit an unfiltered emotion.
It was misery, Youn says.
Maybe hes a genius, but hes very weird.
Back in that time, I was thinking,Oh, this man is just killing me.
I dont understand him at all.
Then, at the peak of her career, Youn retired.
They lived next to the Northside Baptist Church, where her husband sang gospel.
She had planned to learn English, intending to star in Christian films.
She made friends and learned to bake cookies.
When she gave birth to their second son, Nuel the Korean word for always Cho was in Korea.
Later on, I found out he had an affair, she says.
He wanted to name his son Nuel, but hes not going to benuel.That was really tragic.
They got divorced, and she returned to Korea with her two children.
For a time, she considered moving back to Florida, where she still had a house.
She recalls her friend the TV writer Kim Soo-hyun convinced her to stay.
She said, Are you stupid?
you’re free to bring your name back, Youn says.
You were very big at the time.
You forgot all about it.
So Youn began again.
Only this time, she was a 40-year-old divorcee in an era that was unkind to such women.
connection executives thought she should lie low for a couple of years.
She said yes to whatever work came her way.
Status wasnt the goal; survival was.
She played a lot of stock characters: good mother, bad mother, poor mother, rich mother.
She was a workhorse, always ready for her cue.
Still, TV direction felt unnatural to her sensibilities.
They always overacted, she says.
The director always said, Do more.
I put all my feelings in that line, but they ask me, More!
There was nothing conventional about her.
Her distinctiveness was polarizing.
Viewers would sometimes call in to the station to complain about that woman with the strange voice and face.
Her face is indeed long and pensive, and her smokers voice is as dry as her wit.
As Bong describes it, its different from what we would call husky.
That would be too simple.
Theres a rough, sandy texture combined with the precise pronunciation that pierce your ears.
Youn professes ignorance about her own uniqueness yet feels protective of that quality in others.
When Youn met herMinarico-star Han Yeri in Tulsa, she told her never to get plastic surgery.
I said, Dont touch your face.
She has such a good face.
A very Korean face, Youn says, laughing.
In 2009, she starred inActresses,a commentary on fame and the public eye.
At 62, Youn was the eldest.
They wonder why female actors never hang out in groups like this.
The divorcees end up on one side, the unmarried women on the other.
My divorce was like I was dead, Youn tells the group.
It was a crime at the time.
Her younger colleagues tell her its still hard, that its still a scarlet letter.
They begin to tear up.
Why are you all crying?
She tells them to drink up.
Its my luxury time, Youn says.
Minariis restrainedbut insistent about what it is: an American story told almost entirely in Korean.
So she shut her mouth and did the work.
The gesture became a running joke on set.
Every time someone pulled something off, it was because they were pros.
When Youn viewedMinarifor the first time at its Sundance premiere, she was characteristically unsentimental.
She zeroed in on the flaws.
She looked around the theater and wondered why everyone was crying.
The moment didnt hit her until a later screening when Chung went onstage and received a standing ovation.
Then I cried, says Youn.
I was so proud of him.
I always cry when reality comes.
