Interview with Actress Suzy Praised for Coupang Play's 'Anna'
Persuaded Director to Portray Tired Yumi as a 6-Year-Old
Understood Glamorous Anna's Emotions by Writing a Diary to Grasp the Character
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] “Does a dream have to be success? Can’t it just be about being human?”
In Suzy’s previous work, the male lead asked her this while gazing at her. Now, as 'Anna,' she asks the audience in return. Is it wrong to steal someone’s life and dream of success?
Singer and actress Suzy fully embodied the anxiety that runs through the character’s life and the overall narrative with a somewhat thin and dry expression in the Coupang Play original series 'Anna.' Putting aside the image of the ‘nation’s first love’ for a moment, both the public and critics have praised the weight carried by the unfamiliar expressions she presented.
When we met Suzy recently at a cafe in Samcheong-dong, Seoul, she shared, “I’ve never received so much praise before, so it still feels amazing and unfamiliar,” and added, “Since so many good articles are coming out, I wondered if this was real or if it was a hidden camera prank.”
Playing Yumi, the daughter of a small-town tailor’s shop, who has a lot of talent and ambition but lacks the environment to support it, and whose lies that started by chance spiral out of control, turning her into the glamorous fake life of Anna, Suzy said, “I thought everyone might have their own Anna inside, so I was eager to take on the role.”
Reflecting on how everyone exaggerates their visible selves and sometimes lies, she felt certain that audiences would end up rooting for Anna. She hoped that the audience would accept and empathize with Anna’s lies. When she first received the script, the title was ‘Anna You Also Know.’ Maybe because of that, Suzy quickly added, “In reality, she’s a character you wouldn’t want to meet.”
To express the fatigue and resignation of youth in their twenties enduring a hard life, she willingly removed her makeup and crouched in front of a charcoal fire. “The scene where I worked part-time at a barbecue restaurant and lit the fire is memorable. After removing my makeup and putting on comfortable clothes, I felt so at ease sitting by the fire,” she said, adding that she felt much more comfortable playing Yumi than the glamorous Anna, just being herself. To capture Yumi’s worn-out expression from various part-time jobs, Suzy stayed up all night before filming and went to the set.
Yumi’s boredom with life and resignation to an unchangeable reality are amplified through her pale, cool, and dry bare face. This also became the driving force that solidly supports Anna’s desire to steal others’ lives and dream of a glamorous life.
To understand Yumi’s anxiety about her lies being exposed, Suzy said she kept a diary. She shared, “I started writing a diary every morning to understand Yumi’s feelings living as Anna. I began writing my thoughts about Yumi from a distance, and later my emotions overlapped with hers, which greatly helped me understand the character.”
Through advice from a psychological counselor, Suzy broadened her understanding of the psychology of a person who lies habitually and refined her acting to embody Yumi’s anxiety. This process became an opportunity to reflect on her own life as a singer and actress over the past 12 years since her debut. “As I immersed myself in the character, I felt that the happy life Anna gained through lies was not happiness but actually a misery that strangled her own neck, which brought about a sense of despair,” she said. “Expressing Anna’s reality, who has everything but becomes more anxious, was physically and mentally exhausting, but at the same time, it made me look back on my past of running nonstop since debut and want to comfort myself that it’s okay to live a little more loosely.”
With a desire to show a new side of herself, Suzy chose ‘Anna’ and said, “I wanted to show a different side from the acting I’ve done so far.” Since it was a work anyone would want to take, she persuaded the director with the mindset of not letting it slip away. She laughed, “During that process, I even told the director that I could act as 6-year-old Yumi because I really wanted to do this project.”
Still fond of the nickname ‘nation’s first love’ and wanting to keep it, she also expressed her wish to “slowly move forward at my own pace and be recognized as an actress.” The pale face of a girl, imbued with the depth of time, was now vividly portraying the life of a woman. Suzy is taking one step forward today as well.
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