The Iceberg

I don’t know actress Lee Mi-yeon (이미연) personally, so I can’t say this with 100 percent certainty, but if this interview with the Chosun Ilbo is any indication, Ms. Lee may not be the nicest person in the world. Some quotes from the article left me shaking my head. For starters:

“Acting has produced the biggest energy and the greatest pain in my life. I can’t promise you that I’m going to be an actress for the rest of my life. When I fall out of love with acting, I’ll quit immediately.”

Oh please promise, Mi-yeon, that you’ll be an actress for the rest of your life. Pretty please! We need you. At least promise that you’ll continue to appear in commercials at least three times a year.

“It is dangerous for an actor to feature in too many TV commercials.”

Of course, this doesn’t apply to her,

“People seem to have been looking out for me even during my break because of my healthy image.”

Whew! That’s a relief. Now that that’s settled, let’s move on to her latest television drama, “Crazy Over Love”. The premise seems a stretch; she plays a woman who falls in love with the man who killed her fiance in an accident the day before the wedding. Wow! That must have taken some serious acting to pull that off. I mean, even Ms. Lee admits,

“I still think nothing is more difficult than love.”

Damn straight! Making love work is hard enough in the most ideal of circumstances, let alone when it involves exchanging sweet nothings with the person who is responsible for KILLING YOUR FIANCE. Personally, I’d have trouble putting that out of my mind whenever the time came to drop my drawers to the floor, but Ms. Lee disagrees,

“Well, love isn’t rational. I don’t think such things are impossible.”

Suhweet! There is a Korean proverb that says, “Just because there is a goalkeeper doesn’t mean you can’t score a goal.” Add Ms. Lee’s philosophy to the equation and you can take it a step further: Rub out the goalkeeper and you can score as many goals as you damn well please.

(Thank you, God, for replacing the love of my life with the man responsible for his death.)

But I digress. Confronted with such a difficult role, isn’t it important to develop on-screen chemistry with the male lead? Umm, maybe not. Here are Ms. Lee’s thoughts on singer-turned-actor co-star Yun Gye-sang,

“It’s more difficult to partner with Yun than with more experienced actors such as Han Seok-gyu or Park Shin-yang. I have to think more this time.”

Ouch! Take that, Mr. Yun! Don’t quit your day job. Hehehe.

(For you doubters out there, I’ve provided a couple of photos of Ms. Lee thinking more on the set of her new drama.)

Difficult as it may be to believe, Ms. Lee was not always the quality actress that she is today,

“I still feel sorry that I started my career when I was completely unprepared.”

Indeed, she was so unprepared that she was duped into becoming the Korean Demi Moore™ (”St. Elmo’s Fire” version).

But she persevered, and by combining self-confidence and a positive attitude…

“I picked out a movie based on a novel by the famous writer Gong Ji-young and made a fresh start. I think it was at that time that my performance improved. I received a lot of praise. In ‘Number 3′ (1997) and ‘Whispering Corridors’ (1998), people thought I was in a supporting role, but I felt I played the lead.”

with hard work…

“I still can’t forget how hard it was when I did interviews with young girls eight times a day for ‘Whispering Corridors.’”

she became the woman whom today we all beg to promise us she will never give up acting.

Alas, life is not perfect for Ms. Lee. When one is as beloved as she is, nasty rumors borne of jealousy are naturally unavoidable. Whenever Ms. Lee is confronted with such rumors, she no doubt looks and feels something like this…

One such evil, nasty, and entirely whacked rumor is that she berates younger colleagues if they don’t give her enough respect. Ms. Lee says that couldn’t be further from the truth,

“People who really know me say I’m really a gentle woman. - (Refer to previous photo…See?) - But since an actor called me the female Choi Min-su, things have got quite nasty. I’ve never scolded young actors. If I were really like Choi Min-su, going my own way without minding how others view me, life would be much easier.”

Exactly! However, a word of advice to all of you young punks out there. Mind your “nays” and “yos”, lest you be gettin’ the look that goes a little somethin’ like this…

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I don’t know Lee Mi-yeon personally, so my evaluation of her character could be completely off base. So, Mi-yeon, if you read this, I’d be happy to get to know you over dinner and (many) drinks…all in the name of truth and accuracy.

Sorry…Mi-yeon “Ssi”…

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