Since her debut in Im Sang-soo’s Tears in the year 2000, Cho Eun-ji has distinguished herself as one of Korean cinema’s most versatile and dynamic actors. In both leading and supporting roles, she has drawn widespread praise for her performances in such films as The President’s Last Bang, Driving with My Wife’s Lover, My Scary Girl, Forever the Moment, The Concubine, The Target, The Villainess, and Nailed. In total she has acted in close to 40 films and TV dramas, while also collaborating on the screenplay of Night of the Undead (2019), and now releasing her first feature film as a director, Perhaps Love.
Perhaps Love, featuring a diverse group of characters each struggling in their own way with family and personal relationships, was released in Korea in November 2021, earning positive reviews from critics and selling over 500,000 tickets.
– You’ve been working in cinema as an actor for many years, but when did you first develop an interest in directing?
I think it was around 2015. I’d been doing some writing, and the people who read my work kept asking me if I also wanted to direct. I had an idea for a short film I wanted to make, but before that I shot a film called The Effect of 20,000 Won that was just a few minutes long. It was about a struggling guy with no job who loses 20,000 won [roughly US$18] in a café, and he then starts suspecting all the other customers of taking it. It was meant to be about humanity. But no humanity came out in the final film. [laughs] So I’ve kept it safe in my computer, and it’s never been shown.
– The short film you shot after that, 2Nights, 3Days, screened at many film festivals and won some awards. How was the experience of shooting that film?
The film is about a woman who goes to her boyfriend’s house to celebrate the two-year anniversary of dating together, but then he tells her he wants to break up. But she has a hard time understanding or accepting this, so the film covers the two nights and three days she spends at his home. Directing it was really difficult. I struggled to find the best way to communicate and work with all the actors and the members of the crew. So it was hard, but it ended being a really valuable experience for me. That experience helped me a lot when shooting Perhaps Love.
– How did you come to direct Perhaps Love, and what was it that attracted you to this story?
The production company contacted me and asked if I’d direct it. They sent me the screenplay, and it struck me as fresh and new, and it was the kind of story I wanted to tell as a director. So even though it took me some time to make a decision, in the end it was quite simple, because I really wanted to do it.
It’s a story about different kinds of prejudice, but the way these issues are explored in the film is quite gentle and comfortable. There is the storyline related to homosexuality, and a man’s relationship with his friend’s ex-wife, which I expanded a bit while revising the script. There’s also the young boy who falls in love with a married woman. For all these characters, it’s not that they decided anything so much as they are pulled along by their heart, so I wanted to ask, do we really need to judge them? That’s what I liked most about this script, that it questioned our preconceived notions in this way.
– How did you cast the film?
In the process of revising the script, I spent a lot of time thinking about the characters, and about which actors had the qualities that each role needed. So I already had pretty concrete ideas about the casting at that stage. The character of Yu-jin has a kind of fantasy element to him, but in the case of the middle-aged male characters Hyun and Soon-mo, the actors who immediately came to mind were Ryu Seung-ryong and Kim Hee-won. As for the younger Seong-gyeong, I’ve been watching the actor Sung Yu-bin [Last Child] for a while, and actually I’ve been wanting to act together with him, so he seemed like a good choice. As for Oh Na-ra and Lee Yoo-young, both are actresses who can portray a wide range of characters, so I thought they’d be perfect. After deciding on all these actors I really worried that they might turn the project down, but it was really fortunate for me that they all agreed. Getting that support from them was a really big thing.
– What was the biggest challenge for you on set?
The biggest challenge, as always, was finding the best way to communicate and work with everyone. It’s not that it was difficult in itself, but getting across exactly what I wanted to express in each scene took some effort. I’m not a natural talker [laughs]. So that was the mountain I had to climb. But everyone was very receptive and cooperative, so things went smoothly.
– Are you the kind of director who does a lot of takes on set?
If I had the time, I’d be happy to shoot all night, but we had a tight schedule, and I have to think about the condition of the actors. And actually, the actors understood the roles quite well, and I was happy with their performances, so we didn’t do very many takes. [To her producer, who is sitting nearby] Why are you laughing? It really wasn’t that much [laughs].
– Did you ever consider taking one of the roles in the film, and acting yourself?
Never. I’m not the kind of person who can do two completely different things at once. If I get the chance in the future to direct more films, I won’t do it then, either.
– What kind of film would you like to direct in the future, and what are you working on these days? I know you recently acted in the film The Conversation, which screened at the Busan International Film Festival last year.
In my acting career, I’ve always enjoyed taking on a wide variety of roles, and trying new things. So in the same way, with directing there isn’t any one specific type of film I’m looking to do next, though I guess I am interested in stories about married couples. But if there’s a story that moves me, regardless of genre or style, I would enjoy directing again. At the moment I’m preparing to shoot my next film as an actor. I’m also having some discussions about potential directing projects, so we’ll see.
Darcy Paquet