Youn Yuh-jung, the first Korean to win an Academy Award ( “Best Supporting Actress” for “Minari” in 2021) for acting stars in the Apple TV+ adaptation of the generation-spanning 2017 novel “Pachinko.”
“This role was suitable for my age – she’s 74,” Yuh-jung, 74, told The Post. “I read the script first. I was very interested in that role and I felt like I needed to play it. Then, I went out and got the book. [I could relate to] her strength, and her determination to survive.”
Premiering March 25, “Pachinko” is a family saga covering the years 1910 to 1989 and following Sunja (Yuh-jung) and her family through the decades.
Sunja, played in her younger days by Yu-na Jeon (as a child) and Minha Kim (as a young woman), grows up in poverty in a fishing village as her family faces repression during the Japanese colonization and occupation of Korea — until circumstances force her to leave Korea for Osaka, Japan.
Many years later, her grandson, Solomon (Jin Ha), an ambitious employee at a giant international firm who studied in America, returns to his roots in Japan and reconnects with his father Mozasu (Soji Arai) and grandmother Sunja (Yuh-jung) as he grapples with his family legacy. Meanwhile, Sunja thinks she made the right choice to leave Korea at the time in the 1930s — but in her older years, she feels compelled to make a pilgrimage back to her homeland.
“She faced all these difficulties. She got pregnant because she didn’t know [the baby’s father] was a married man,” said Yuh-jung. “But she had a baby and she tried to protect him and was honest about it. I liked representing this Korean lady to the world. When I play a role, maybe inside of me something comes out from my heart — but I don’t usually imitate people. I try to think about, ‘If I were her, how would I behave?’”
While Yuh-jung rose to international prominence with her award-winning role in “Minari,” she’s had a storied career in Korea dating back to the 1960s. She briefly retired from acting in the 1970s before resuming in the 1980s. It was an unusually successful comeback for a then-middle-aged actress at the time.
She said that winning an Oscar has not impacted her life, but she was also not aware of her status as the first Korean to take home the acting trophy until it happened.
“They were saying that’s the first time in our history and I was really shocked. I felt like I was running for the country, like an Olympian,” she said. “I didn’t like that pressure.”
She said she’s had to display her Oscar in a prominent place in her home for the sake of her friends and visitors.
“I had so many awards. I put them in the basement. But that one, the Oscar, people like to see it and they like to touch it,” she said. “I asked why, and they said it will bring them luck, maybe. So, I keep it in the living room.”
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