For ‘Minari,’ Steven Yeun Channeled His Father and ‘Existential, Isolated Loneliness’
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- Опубліковано 14 бер 2021
- Yeun's own father emigrated to the U.S. in pursuit of land. His son has followed his own idiosyncratic beat.
It’s been a long year since January 2020, when Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari” scored both the Dramatic Grand Jury and Audience awards at Sundance. A24 was considering a summer rollout for the heartland Arkansas family drama, but COVID intervened, and the movie’s star Steven Yeun found himself captive at home in Los Angeles with his wife and two little kids, doing Zoom interviews. He worried that the film would somehow get lost, he admitted in our conversation (above). But finally A24 got the movie widely seen, and it’s been showing up in many of the key awards nominations that lead to Oscars, and, riding the controversy about arcane Golden Globes rules, won their foreign-language award when it wasn’t eligible for Best Motion Picture - Drama.
“I get the anger, I get the response to this, institutions and rules fail us all the time,” Yeun said. “They are never able to capture the complexities of real life… Truth is, the feeling emanating for a film about the Asian American experience often carries with it an unAmericanness, or an outside perspective, and is never encapsulated as part of Americana. And so whether the rule is sound or not, that’s the feeling that’s coming from it. I’m proud to be part of a project that shot an arrow directly at the bullseye of what this feeling is. It’s challenging the institutions that often fail us.”
Both Yeun and his costar, Korean movie star Yuh-jung Youn, wound up with SAG, Critics Choice, and Indie Spirit nominations, as well as being part of the coveted SAG Ensemble nomination that helped to propel “Parasite” to its Oscar win last year.
The actor has a lot to be grateful for, landing the role of Glenn Rhee on the AMC zombie-fest “Walking Dead” within five months of his arrival in L.A. “I simultaneously held and pushed away a feeling of knowing that I was one of the few Asian-American faces on TV and cinema at the time,” he said, even though the likes of John Cho, Daniel Dae Kim, and Sandra Oh had “navigated an even more difficult time than myself. I was being asked to occupy a space that was also fresh and new, in that the character wasn’t too stereotypical or needing to be defined by their ethnicity. Glenn was beyond that conversation. That was an incredible liberation for me, that’s the place we want to get to.”
There’s no question that the actor who put in seven years on the global juggernaut hit emerged a star with a hefty social media following. “Afterwards I realized I deeply gained a lot of knowledge,” he said, not just about acting under pressure, but “a massive privilege in not being a starving artist.” But Glenn also existed in a constant present, without a back story. After that, “I wanted to contextualize me,” Yeun said. “I wanted to understand how I might want to express myself in a deeper way…I don’t know where that confidence came from, it was more like after seven years immersed in a reality that wasn’t mine, I couldn’t tell the difference between where that ended and where it began.”
With “fuck you money” in hand, the actor had the luxury of being able to say, “been there, done that” and turn down countless offers to play such television roles as a CIA operative on the run who’s good at tech, or a scientist creating a robot friend, and escape the boxes to which he could have been consigned. Instead, he took far lower-paying roles, from Lee Chang-dong’s lauded art film “Burning” (Well Go), in which he played a layered, not-so-upstanding character and earned his first raves from film critics, to two comedic roles, on Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You” (Focus Features) and Bong Joon Ho’s hybrid East-West comedy “Okja” (Netflix). “Bong Joon Ho served to contextualize me in a larger narrative,” Yeun said, “where someone like myself who looks like me could come from.”
That’s why, when Yeun’s agent Christina Chow, who also reps the actor’s wife’s cousin, Lee Isaac Chung, sent him the auteur’s script for “Minari,” Yeun not only wanted to play the leading role of a Korean immigrant trying to start his own farm in a strange new land, but signed on as executive producer, so that he could use his clout to help get the movie made. “It was so honest and so truthful and so confident in its own point of view, I really loved it,” said Yeun. “It was unwavering in its own self, it didn’t require a juxtaposition to anything else for its own existence.”
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I listened to Steven many times now and I am convinced that he is very thoughtful man.
He talks so elegantly but without any reservation. He sounds very honest to me
You don't need to talk "tough" as we see so many men do.
We need more actors like him in Hollywood!!
I agree. I enjoy listening to him, and he is often inspiring.
I can listen and watch Steven Yeun for 24/7
Congrations on the Oscar nomination! Loved you in Minari and Burning!
The inteview was incredible!
Will always love Glenn❤️❤️❤️
Congrats Steve for oscar nom.
Steve made history!!! First leading man not supporting man for OSCAR nomination ...Hope he takes the Oscar!!!
Wow!! Isaac is his wife’s cousin?? Didn’t know that.
glenn!!!!!! where is maggie girl~~
All together united children including let us turn to the Eternal Father! Dear brothers, instead of useless thoughts including other worthless projects, we optimize everything and therefore I take this opportunity to offer you a mutual and collective collaboration carried out through prayer. Let me explain immediately: on Facebook together with some of you, we have formed a prayer group that we have baptized "Trinity Network", which consists of a communion of universal brotherhood based on the love of God the Father. Every evening after dinner or however, before going to sleep, we each carry out the prayers from our own home together with the other participants, scattered in different places around the world.
The prayer takes place by kneeling and with hands joined, beginning with a moderate voice with the Our Father; the Ave Maria; Glory to the Father; (Important ... let us not separate our hands, as the Eternal communicates with the soul and we lose contact). As we begin to pray, we may be disturbed by external forces, such as thoughts, useless things, digressions and more.
Through several repetitions of the prayers, the whole moves away, since even if we wanted to think something, it will be impossible to do so.
Later we will begin with a greeting addressed to God and with the phrase "Hello Eternal Father."; below, there is an account of the problems or problems that worry us, with a request for help from the Eternal.
Our prayer group draws the three main prayers from the church, Our Father; the Hail Mary; Glory to the Father; (the easiest and most known to people) and enhances them with a familiar conversation with God, in which you can talk about everything with the Almighty, ranging from everyday trivialities to serious problems, in a word a real dialogue at 360 degrees .
Between one anecdote and another and at the end of the conversation, it is necessary to repeat the Our Father once; the Hail Mary; Glory to the Father. For this reason, by praying together, the presence of God is simultaneous in all hearts and this facilitates his intervention.
Having felt the benefit, it was decided to repeat the prayer in the morning and / or in the afternoon.
Obviously, if the commitments of everyday life do not allow you to pray in the morning or in the afternoon, do not worry: you can move it to another time of the day, The Eternal understands and knows why you do it.
However, it is essential that the evening prayer be made without delay. I guarantee you the absolute benefit of the teaching used up to now and I assure you that dialogue with the Supreme frees the soul from impurities and brings peace and well-being.
I enclose my most sincere greetings, in my name and in the name of the other brothers of the prayer group, hoping to be more and more numerous. A hug Lucia!
I received this prayer teaching in a social network from a praiseworthy Islamic girl, who advised me to read it carefully, not to delete it, to offer it to family and give it to friends, because it will be appreciated better than any good food, since it is useful to improve the soul! he sent it to make God known
I enclose your prayers!
The sign of the cross,
in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
Come your kingdom,
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
Help us not to fall into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen
Ave Maria
full of grace, the Lord is with you.
You are blessed among women and the blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus, pray for us sinners,
now and in the hour of our death. Amen
Glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, now and forever and ever. Amen
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