“I like to move, so I want to play an action genre or a detective role. I also have a thirst for a villain. Even more than Haemi, I want to play a villain pushed to the extreme like Yeonjin from ‘The Glory.’”
When asked about the character she would like to challenge in the future, actress Choi Yoon-ra, whom we met at the Ten Asia headquarters to mark the end of KBS1's daily drama 'Bean Pod in My Eyes', said this.
'Bean Pods in My Eyes', which ended on the 24th, depicts the story of a delinquent daughter-in-law who appears at a 30-year-old gomtang restaurant, the second love of Yeongi, a confident single mother who says what she has to say no matter what, and a family with many stories that never go well. Work.
In the play, Choi Yoon-ra plays the role of Kim Hae-mi, a strict daughter who holds both work and love in her hands and the fiancée of Jang Gyeong-jun (Baek Seong-hyun), forming a tense rivalry with Lee Young-i (Baek Nuri), injecting tension into the play.
Choi Yun-ra said, "I have been playing Haemi for 8 months. If you include the preparation process, it seems to have lasted about 10 months. I have a lot of regrets about whether I will be able to escape being Haemi."
For Choi Yun-ra, ‘Bean Pods in My Eyes’ is her first lead role and her first daily drama. When asked if he felt any pressure, he said, "When I had a lot of time, I filmed 7 days a week, when I had a lot, I filmed for 3 days a week. There were almost no days off. When I did, I barely had time to sleep because I was memorizing the script." "The entire script comes out, but for daily dramas, new scripts come out while filming, so I was worried about whether I could digest them well. But those parts were attractive and fun. It was exhilarating," he said.
He also talked about the difficulties he had while acting in a daily drama. Choi Yun-ra said, "It was completely different from the camera acting I had done before. It was difficult not to be able to move as I wanted. The most difficult thing was that there were three cameras in front of me and I had to follow only a limited movement. One day, there were times when the scenes were crowded together. Yes. If there are 30 to 40 scenes to film in a day, 2/3 of them are mine. There were too many days like that, so I felt pressured. I had to memorize the script well, but I made frequent mistakes. It was the first time I felt a sense of change in my head. “It was white,” he recalled.
When asked about synchronization with the character, Choi Yun-ra said, "I have never committed an evil act like Hae-mi's level, but our personalities are similar when we work. The way Hae-mi looks when she works at the company is similar to the way I worry about acting."
He added, "I think we're similar in that we can't hold back what we're curious about, and that we work hard to get something. Also, my image seems harsh and haughty, so I guess that kind of image resembles Hae-mi's."
It was said that there was a lot of thought about styling for the character of ‘Um Chin Daughter’. He explained, "It wasn't easy to prepare because there were so many outfits. So the highlight was the tweed material. Even in the summer, I wore a tweed dress and short sleeves."
In the play, Kim Hae-mi is a character who commits all kinds of evil deeds due to her blind love and obsession with Jang Gyeong-jun. In response, Choi Yun-ra said, "This friend always got what he wanted, and he loved Gyeong-jun so much that he thought he was a character that he had to achieve. Of course, I didn't know that he would even attempt suicide. Don't the two of you have a lot of memories in America? In an unfamiliar land." “I feel affectionate toward people from my hometown. I thought that those feelings might have degenerated into blind love,” he said.
“I think I thought I would die if it wasn’t for this person. I thought this person was my divine being. Thankfully, the writer wrote Haemi as not in her right mind, so I was able to act more comfortably. It would have been better to go that route. It was easy. It was more confusing at first when I went back and forth between good and evil.”
In the scene where he slaps Lee Young, he didn't actually hit him, he just pretended to hit him. Choi Yun-ra explained, "It was really cold that day. My hands and feet were frozen, my mouth was frozen, and my nose was running, so my hands were also very cold. I told him to really hit me, but it was so uncomfortable. So I did my best to hide it and pretended to hit him, but fortunately it was covered well."
However, towards the latter half of the play, Hae-mi acknowledged the fact that Jang Gyeong-jun and Lee Young-i were fated lovers and took on the role of a helper in earnest. When asked if the character had collapsed, Choi Yun-ra said, "There was confusion. It was difficult and incomprehensible to give up on Gyeong-jun. It was difficult to understand that the fact that Gyeong-jun had the eyes of his cousin was the reason for giving up. That's why the writer asked Haemi. He contacted me and said he wanted to hear why he had to give up on Gyeong-jun, and asked him to write a line so that he could express the reason for giving up in words. That's why there was a scene where he was talking to his father at a food stall. After telling him that, the pent-up congestion was relieved. “It was more,” he said.
The love line with Jeong Soo-hwan (played by Jang Se-jun) was also unexpected. Choi Yun-ra said, “It was a development I had never heard of. The writer also said, ‘Isn’t that a bit much?’ But the response was good, so I think I continued it.”
“I didn’t know it felt like a love line until the last filming was over. (Laughs)”
What was it like working with Baek Seong-hyun? Choi Yun-ra said, "I had the most will. Senior Baek Seong-hyeon is actually a senior at school. Although we rarely met," he said, "He was the leader within the group and a top contributor. Even though he had a lot of work and couldn't sleep much, he checked our condition. He expressed his gratitude, saying, “If you don’t understand the story line, I advised you to do this part. I think 30 years of experience is amazing.”
I heard that a lot of people recognized me while doing daily dramas. Choi Yun-ra said, "It's amazing. He knew the name and the content exactly. Even young people recognized it. My mom played it, so it seemed like we were watching it together," and "When we were filming outdoors, people passing by said, 'Haemi is so mean,' ' “Some people even say, ‘I need to be a little nicer.’ I was so grateful because I could feel that there was an attachment to the work,” he said.
When asked about a memorable reaction, Choi Yun-ra said, "I was touched when someone told me that the reaction of criticism was because the actor acted well, and that Choi Yun-ra should not have a hard time. I was happy to be criticized. I felt encouraged because I thought I had followed the path well. “He expressed his gratitude.
Choi Yun-ra said of her goal this year, “Maintain a closer distance from viewers.” He said, "I had a goal as an actor before, but it changed a little after I met 'Kong Podji'. I knew that awareness was important, but my appearance changed a lot after my awareness increased. Maintaining my distance from viewers is the most important priority. “I think it is,” he added.
"I think Haemi was created together with the viewers in 'Kong Pod'. I also created the character while looking at the comment window and seeing the reactions of 'You hate Haemi this much.' I was inspired by those comments and acted even worse. Thank you for creating Haemi together with me. thank you."
Taeyuna, Ten Asia Reporter youyou@tenasia.co.kr