In spite of the hand-wringing the film garnered from critics after its premiere at Cannes, director Na Hong-Jin‘s sci-fi action movie, Hope, may go down in history as the quintessential word-of-mouth blockbuster movie of the year. Much of that is thanks to the Neon film’s breathtaking mise-en-scène, propulsive action sequences, and gut-busting moments of comedic relief. But if you asked moviegoers what the clear standout was, they’d probably say it was actress Hoyeon.
Hope sees the sequestered village of Hope Harbor plagued by mysterious oddities, leaving its livestock and elderly residents dead in their wake. Hope might as well be an acronym for “hell on planet Earth” because police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) and hunter Sung-ki (Zo In-sung) are woefully in over their heads the moment the gargantuan creatures from beyond our stars appear. Hoyeon’s rookie officer Sung-ae isn’t.
Sung-ae hits the scene like a bat out of hell, guns blazing. Streets are calling her character introduction the best thing since the invention of the wheel. And honestly, it’s that serious. While the jury is still out on whether the film is a genuine tribute to blockbuster sci-fi movie-making or an elaborate satire of it, Hope absolutely rips as an adrenaline-rush action movie spectacle. And much of that is thanks to Hoyeon’s scene-stealing performances. io9 spoke with the infectiously likable model about her leap from Squid Game to Hope as her first-ever feature film.
Before Hoyeon heard anything about Hope‘s story, setting, characters, or themes of perception as the root of all tragedies, she simply had a general meeting with Na. A meeting she told io9 was a “big yes” for her.
“I’ve been a huge fan of Jin for a while because of The Chaser, Yellow Sea, and The Wailing—every film that he made made me want to work with him,” Hoyeon said.
In their first meeting, the pair didn’t talk shop about Hope, a film whose U.S. premiere had the widest domestic theatrical release for a Korean film since Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite and had the highest-budget of any South Korean movie in history, with a budget of roughly €30 million (S$44 million), according to The Straits Times. They mostly shot the breeze, asking each other how life was and chatting about her two sisters (she’s gone on record with W Magazine saying she’s the funniest one among them).
Hoyeon must’ve been on to something because after their meeting, she recalled Na telling her he saw something in her that reminded him of officer Sung-ae. Na was so smitten by their platonic meet-cute that he gave Hoyeon the script for Hope after their first encounter. After which, Hoyeon says she didn’t even consider if she was going to join the film or not. Once she got the script, it never left her hands until she got home and promptly manifested her official casting as Sung-ae by writing her name under the title.
“Even though you sign contracts, castings can be changed. You don’t know what’s going to happen,” Hoyeon said. “It was my action—my wish—to make [Hope] mine.”
Although Hoyeon didn’t have to morph herself to nail Sung-ae’s firecracker of a personality. According to her, many elements of her day-to-day life lent themselves to inhabiting the character. However, she did have to put in the work to rise to the occasion as Hope‘s standout action-movie star. To prepare, she did her homework by taking inspiration from sci-fi movie heroines from cinema’s past. Chief among her self-imposed homework was watching all the Alien movies. Hoyeon’s goal wasn’t to emulate Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley so much as to immerse herself in the emotion of a human being encountering aliens for the first time.
“I wanted to study the emotion of when someone meets something that they never expected or dreamed about meeting,” she said.
Another film Na personally recommended Hoyeon check out to prepare for her role as Sung-ae in Hope was director Shōhei Imamura’s 1999 war dramedy, Dr. Akagi. Like Hope, Dr. Akagi also walks the line between the serious backdrop of war and absurdist comedy. Where Hope‘s big to-do sees aliens running amok in a rural village, Dr. Akagi‘s sees a doctor searching for a cure for a hepatitis epidemic inside a World War II prison-war camp. The “old Japanese film” inspired Hoyeon, who drew on actor Kumiko Asō’s portrayal of the titular doctor’s wild, naïve assistant, Sonoko Mannami, in her own rambunctious portrayal of Sung-ae.
Prior to Hope, whenever folks think of Hoyeon, the first thing that’d come to mind is her breakout performance as Kang Sae-byeok (Player 067) in director Hwang Dong-hyuk’s mega-popular Netflix series, Squid Game. Although the award-winning death-game series launched her into mainstream pop culture fame and featured intense behind-the-scenes stunt work, Hoyeon readily admits it didn’t necessarily prepare her for the intensive action Hope demands. Alongside Hope committing to the rare feat of having its sci-fi creatures showcased during the daytime, the film also saw its cast perform their own stunts. Many of them were career firsts for Hoyeon.
“This is my biggest, first action scenes that I’ve ever done. In Squid Game, it was more running and fighting, but just physical fighting. I did practice that kind of action stunt, but I never had to think about having a gun or [driving a] manual-stick car. It was quite challenging, but it was also a very joyful experience,” she said. “If I didn’t take this role, I wouldn’t have even tried to get a manual license or shoot a gun.”
Hoyoen couldn’t help but giggle over her proudest scene in Hope, which was a subtle showcase of her gun-wielding prowess compared to her fellow cast members.
“I was able to load the gun very quickly. It doesn’t even show on my face. My hand-loading arm moved so quickly. I could feel the time of my practicing,” she said.
Hope is now playing in theaters.
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