What Next for Korea’s Sweetheart?
May 18, 2007SHE is oh so beautiful, but age is not on her side.
And she can be as stubborn as a mule when it comes to sticking to her acting style.
But Korean sweetheart Lee Young Ae’s biggest hurdle yet in her 17-year showbiz career is the lack of a suitable TV script.
No doubt she is already a household name in Asia, after starring in the hugely-popular historical drama Jewel In The Palace. The serial is still making rounds on TV around the world, the latest being Russia.
Her name is synonymous with Jang Geum, the never-say-die heroine of the period drama, who rises from a lowly palace maid to become a cook and eventually, the first female imperial physician in Korea’s history.
But this signature role has turned into a double-edged sword for her.
The screen image has become so deeply entrenched in everyone’s mind (hands up if you can name another famous TV role of hers), that fans find it hard to imagine her as anyone else.
No wonder Korean director Lee Byung Hoon, who helmed Jewel In The Palace in 2003, said that Young Ae, 36, must be feeling ‘troubled’ over her next showbiz move.
It has been two years since her last project, Sympathy For Lady Vengeance, hit the silver screen and three years since Jewel In The Palace ended its run in Korea.
Instead of striking her next TV deal, the fiercely-private actress chose to stay out of the public eye, except to grace major award ceremonies like the recent 43rd Baeksang Arts Awards and fashion designer Andre Kim’s Best Star Awards.
From time to time, Young Ae, who debuted in a TV commercial in 1990, endorsed top brands like LG or embarked on promotional tours around the region.
Some might scoff that she is being picky or just plain unambitious, but Byung Hoon, who is in his 60s, revealed that it is necessary for her to be careful.
Speaking to The New Paper through an interpreter in Seoul recently, he said: ‘She will feel troubled trying to decide on her next project. She has built such a good image since Jewel In The Palace, but if she chooses the wrong script and suffers a bad image, it will impact her career.’
TV producer Shin Hyun Taik, who owns Samhwa Network Production, which made Young Ae’s drama Fireworks years ago and Jang Nara’s Wedding recently, added that it is time for Young Ae to shake off her Jang Geum image and take up a range of roles so that she can ‘become a world-class actress in the near future’.
While Young Ae made a stunning transformation into the cold-blooded murderer Geum Ja in the critically-acclaimed black comedy Sympathy For Lady Vengeance, lukewarm box-office figures outside Korea suggested that most fans still associate her with the kind and gentle Jang Geum.
Public mindset aside, it seems age is also a stumbling block for the beauty.
Young Ae’s manager recently lamented that good roles are hard to come by for actresses in their 30s and most scripts tend to place greater emphasis on the male leads.
But he maintained that they will wait for a suitable script, instead of ‘jumping into a decision’.
AGE IS A NEGATIVE FACTOR
Even Byung Hoon cited age as a negative factor when asked if he intends to produce a sequel to Jewel In The Palace.
Many fans had hoped that Young Ae would reprise the Jang Geum role, but the director’s response was a firm ‘impossible’.
Shaking his head in mock resignation, he said: ‘We’ve already explored all possible story angles in 54 episodes, and what’s more, Lee Young Ae is now too old (to play Jang Geum).
‘MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation) did ask me two years ago if I intended to do a sequel, but I’ve already told them many times it is impossible.’
Inevitably, the mid-30s is an awkward age for many actresses, and not just in Korea.
Someone like Young Ae, for instance, would be too old to play a young woman and too young to be a mother or ajuma (auntie in Korean).
So, what can she be?
Byung Hoon said: ‘She can play a woman in her late 20s or early 30s, maybe a working professional like lawyer, teacher, doctor or business journalist.
‘She can’t be a kid’s mother, that would be too old for her. I think she should be a professional career woman instead. But I wonder if she agrees with me?’
There was talk that Young Ae was to be cast as a female president in a new Korean drama, but there have been no updates.
Perhaps, another obstacle is that she probably commands a sky-high fee that makes many producers think twice before offering her a role.
She and fellow Hallyu stars like BaeYong Joon and Choi Ji Woo are known to command up to 50million won ($80,000) per episode, which could work out to be half of the production budget of any major serial.
But more of this sticky problem in next Monday’s installment.
Whatever her decision, Byung Hun believes that Young Ae will shine.
To him, she is a versatile actress who is like a piece of white paper.
‘You apply the colours and she’ll become them. She can play Geum Ja or Jang Geum or anyone else.
‘She can appear intelligent on one side and cold on the other.’
He said that she is hardworking, sincere and dedicated in her work, and impeccably polite with everyone.
Producer Hyun Taik added that she is ‘taciturn, cool-headed, staid and dependable’, and one of her biggest virtues is her ability to concentrate fully on her role.
But the seemingly-perfect Young Ae is not without flaws.
During filming, Byung Hoon said sometimes she was unrelentingly stubborn and placed logic above everything else.
‘Every scene must be logical to her, otherwise she won’t be able to devote herself into the scene.
‘But when it comes to love, sometimes there’s no logic.’
To convince Young Ae to see things from his perspective was no easy feat.
He recalled a scene in Jewel In The Palace, when Jang Geum first confesses her feelings to her beloved (played by Ji Jin Hee) on a beach during sunset.
He said Young Ae insisted that her character would not declare her love so openly, and he spent a long time changing her mind.
‘One can afford to be honest in the face of love, but she said it’s not logical,’ he recalled.
To convince her, he quoted a scene from an ’80s Korean novel, about a
woman who returns to the man whom she earlier betrayed.
The woman wants him to forgive her, but he says he loves her and explains that saying ‘I love you’ is equivalent to saying ‘I forgive you’ 1,000 times.
‘That’s how I finally managed to convince her that anything is possible when you’re in love,’ he said with a laugh.
‘But that’s how Lee Young Ae is. If she can’t understand a concept fully, she cannot proceed to act it out.
‘So every time something like this happened, I had to talk it out with her and convince her.
‘But it became easier during the later phase of the filming, because by then she had learnt to trust me and she would listen to me.’
REFUSED TO LISTEN
But, there were also times when she simply refused to listen.
Byung Hoon said he was touched when she insisted on standing in the freezing cold for an hour just to watch other actors film outdoors, even though she had no scenes with them until much later.
‘I told her to go inside and wait for me to call her, but she wouldn’t listen.
‘She insisted that she can only devote herself into her scene if she stayed and watched. She can be so stubborn.’
Perhaps, that stubborn streak and the pursuit for perfection is what makes her one of Korea’s top stars today.
But it remains to be seen if she can lift herself out of the Jewel box and outdo her most laudable TV performance to date.
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