Jin Se Yun, who gave a passionate performance in 'Recipe For Love,' shared her feelings about finding her own voice on a KBS weekend drama 16 years after her debut.
Jin Se Yun held an interview on the afternoon of the 20th at a café in Noryangjin-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul. At that meeting she spoke with OSEN about the KBS2 weekend drama Recipe For Love (abbreviated Recipe For Love), which ended on the 19th.
Recipe For Love is a family makeover drama in which two families bound by bad blood for 30 years resolve misunderstandings, tend each other's wounds and are ultimately reborn as one family. Within it, Jin Se Yun gave a passionate performance as the female lead Gong Joo-a. Gong Joo-a earned a medical license under her mother's pressure but ultimately followed her dream and chose the path of a designer. Despite the label of being a medical school graduate, she diligently honed her skills and was always loved for her uniquely lovable energy that brightened those around her.
Through this role, Jin Se Yun appeared before viewers on a KBS weekend drama 16 years after debuting in the 2010 SBS drama 'It's Okay, Daddy's Daughter.' Born in 1994, this was the first time she performed an age-appropriate role, and she decided to join Recipe For Love thinking it would be a kind of turning point. However, some aspects differed from her expectations. She laughed, saying "It was harder than I thought," and, stunned by nearly a year of shooting for 50 episodes, added, "I had a lot of outdoor shoots, so the start was difficult. Running for months without sleep weakened my stamina a lot, so I began taking red ginseng and multivitamins," then laughed and said, "At peak times we filmed five days a week, usually starting at 4:30–5 a.m., and at the latest filming began at 7 a.m. Even though my lines weren't particularly difficult, it was like that."
If physical endurance was a technical challenge to overcome during filming, Jin Se Yun also wanted to bring the character to life as an actor. Jin Se Yun said, "When I first read the synopsis, even if the character wasn't very similar to me I wanted to portray her as very lovable. She's really different from me — she even has a male close friend. I don't have male close friends," she laughed, adding, "My relationship with my mother is actually close, but Joo-a has deep wounds from her mother, so even a single exchanged word can lead to a fight in the setup. I worried a lot about how to make that relatable."
In that regard, Jin Se Yun explained, "The thing I worried about most about the character was my voice — I wanted it to sound truly like me. Until now I played roles older than me, so I had a compulsion to make my voice more solemn. This time the character's age is the same as mine and she's not a role that displays professional expertise but a daughter in a family, so I felt I had to be as similar to myself as possible. I practiced intensively."
She said, "Until now I often played professionals like doctors, profilers and roles in historical dramas, and playing 30-something roles in my 20s made it unnecessary but I unconsciously developed that compulsion. I decided to break that and perform with my real voice, and some people noticed. There were positive reactions like 'Jin Se Yun's voice has changed?' so I was relieved. It worked. I gained confidence and felt I should go even further," she laughed.
Furthermore, Jin Se Yun said, "I've done many historical dramas and period pieces, and I hadn't been able to approach everyday aspects. Because I hadn't done many characters that easily evoke empathy, I wanted to become an actor who blends into daily life or someone who can perform in a more refined way. In reality, given the nature of weekend dramas, I couldn't always act in a refined manner. Still, I tried to change in my own way. Fortunately I wasn't cut for that, and I worked little by little to make it less like a typical weekend drama."
She continued, "I want to become a more refined, everyday actor," adding, "I infused a lot of my own coquettish side into Joo-a. Raising the tone of my voice was a pitch I hadn't tried in other works. That was so much fun. It's the coquettishness I show to people I'm close to. So when Seung-su's father saw her acting coquettishly, he said, 'Is that how she is in real life?' I liked that. It allowed a side of me that I couldn't show in other works, that everyday vibe, to come out."
In closing, Jin Se Yun said, "There seems to be no end to refining myself as an actor. Every time I work I learn things from senior actors, and seeing that there is no end to learning and there is so much room to grow, I set a single goal for each project and work through it. Then at some point I think I'll be able to show a more developed side of myself. In this work, acting with my unadorned voice was significant, and going forward it will depend on what character I play in what project."
(Continued from interview②)<
[Photo] provided by the subject.
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