Yeri Han Interview: Minari | Screen Rant
Minari is more than just water celery that's good for you in an "eat your vegetables" way, it's also a beautiful metaphor for the sacrifices immigrant parents make for their children. Lee Isaac Chung's semi-autobiographical film, which will release in theaters on February 12 and be available on-demand starting February 26, follows the Yi family after patriarch Jacob (Steven Yeun, The Walking Dead) begins pursuing his dream of growing Korean vegetables on an American farm and grandmother Soonja (Yuh-jung Youn) moves in to take care of the kids.
Yeri Han, who has already wowed the Korean entertainment industry with roles in dramas such as My Unfamiliar Family and Hello My Twenties (which she's happy to do a third season of!), plays Jacob's beleaguered wife Monica. Though she's unsure of his big decision to move the family to Arkansas, she supports her husband and manages their lives as best she can before the stress becomes overwhelming.
Han spoke to Screen Rant about the discussions she and Steven shared regarding their characters' marriage, the lessons she took away from Minari, and her first experience filming in the Western hemisphere.
As this was your American film debut, what was it like to experience a new country's form of filmmaking?
Yeri Han: I'm very glad that I've actually gone and done it. I didn't feel much difference between Korean production and this production, possibly because it's a low budget film. A lot of the crew who joined us from the Americas side kept telling me, probably for that reason, "This isn't what all US productions are like. I want you to continue making more films and experience something that's different."
I thought the dynamic between Monica and Jacob was really beautiful and bittersweet. From your perspective, what are Monica's frustrations with her marriage and how do you balance them with her love for her husband?
Yeri Han: In my preparation for Monica's character, I had a lot of conversations with Steven. Steven also put a lot of thought into portraying Jacob's character, and he would share the emotions and thoughts that he had about the dynamic with Monica's character. There was a constant exchange of conversation.
I had to think a lot about why Monica is still with Jacob. Why does she still love him? Why did they come to America? These are the questions that I kept asking myself. That journey and process of looking for the answers to those questions gave details to Monica's character.
I know that Minari is loosely based on the director Isaac's childhood and includes stories from his childhood in the script. Outside of the script, did you speak with him about any memories that he had or did you base the character purely on the work in front of you?
Yeri Han: With Isaac, we talked about his childhood experience and my experience of growing up more than we talked about the script itself. He would ask me and listen to my stories about my parents. I have six aunts, so I had a rich reference that I could always go back to, and to get a glimpse into what life was like for women in that era.
Your dynamic Soonja, your mother, was really lovely and surprising because Monica and her mom are so different. What was it like working with Yuh-jung Young, and what backstory did you give that relationship?
Yeri Han: First of all, Soonja is a very unique character. I thought that maybe the reason Monica fell in love with Jacob was because Jacob and Soonja had such similarities. I thought to myself, maybe those qualities that resembled her mother faded or disappeared after they moved to America. I imagined that they Jacob and Monica would miss their old selves and their old times.
I'm very grateful for the experience of working with Yuh-jung. Like many actresses, I drew a lot of lessons and inspiration from her body of work, so it was a great honor. One thing that I learned from working with her was that she is truly fearless. It made me look back at myself and wonder why I was afraid of so many things.
I admired how she could just come to America to make this film on her own, while maintaining her own unique color and being so full of charm. I was very greatly inspired by her.
My own mother is an immigrant from South America, so I related to Monica speaking one language with her kids and having them respond in English. Is going back and forth in two languages something you're familiar with going back, or did you have to adjust to it for the film?
Yeri Han: It's not a common thing in Korea, because Korean is the language that's predominant and everybody speaks it here. Not many bilingual families or cultures exist in Korea at the moment.
But for some reason, the kids speaking English and Korean on the set felt very natural to me. It came to me very naturally.
You just mentioned that your mom is also an immigrant, and making this film made me realize that there has to be a communication gap or barrier between first generation and second generation of immigrants. The first-generation immigrants, they are Korean - you can't help that. But their children, who they have in this country, are Americans. So, there is that gap that is so hard to close between them.
Sometimes the children are exposed to [the other side] from their family, like you see in the film. I could appreciate, through the experience, that the children of first-generation immigrants are in that very unique position of being a floating island. I'm grateful, because it offered me an opportunity to really see that and think about that.
The title Minari seems to be a really beautiful metaphor for the story. What does minari, and the act of Soonja planting it, represent to you?
Yeri Han: To me, minari represents great love; the great love of parents who sowed the seeds on a foreign land for their children. The roots come up out of that and really prosper from that, and they can provide their children with something from a barren land. Thanks to that love, this family is also able to put their roots into this land in America.
What happened in the film is something that each member of the family experienced for the first time, and they can only learn from their mistakes. But because of what it represents, and all of great things that the metaphor includes or implies, I really loved the ending.