Yoon Yeo-jung, who took the SAG, “Isn’t English very good?”… Colleagues “Perfect” Thumbs Up

“I am recognized in the West. It’s really, really an honor. Especially, my actors and colleagues chose me for the Best Supporting Actress Award.”
Yoon Yeo-jung (74), the actor of the movie’Minari’, won the first Korean Actor’s Association (SAG) Award for Best Supporting Actress. It was at the video awards ceremony held non-face-to-face due to Corona 19 on the evening of the 4th (local time). It is the first record in Korea for the second consecutive year, following the ensemble award (all cast members), the first foreign language film for’Parasite’ last year.

Yoon Yeo-jung opened her mouth wide open when her name was called. I watched the awards ceremony in the US on the morning of the 5th Korean time in Seoul. One of the candidates, when his face was close-up, wrapped his cheeks with his hands and said, “I don’t know how to express my feelings.” “I am very happy and happy. Thank you,” he said in English. He said that the American Actors Guild Award is even more special as it is a prize that actors vote for.

He said, “I’m not good at my English,” he said, “Am I speaking right? Everything is unfamiliar.” The seventy-four same age American actor Glenn Close (‘Hilville’s Song’) raised his thumbs, and British actor Olivia Coleman (‘The Father’) made a circle with both thumbs and index fingers, “Perfect!” Exclaimed. Are all of you falling in love with Sun-ja, a strange maternal grandmother played by Yoon Yeo-jung in’Minari’, which depicts the autobiographical family immigration history of Korean Americans, second generation director Isaak Jeong in the 1980s. On this day, the competitors of the Best Supporting Actress Award watched Yoon Yeo-jung with lovely eyes throughout. When Yun Yeo-jung called “Thank you” one by one of Olivia Coleman, Glenn Close, and Maria Bacalova (‘Borat sequel’), they all smiled and applauded.
‘Minari’, a second-generation Korean-American director Jung Isaac, depicting an autobiographical family immigration history in the 1980s, was nominated for the Best Actor Award and Ensemble Award for the lead actor Steven Yeon, who also produced, but unfortunately, the award was missed.

In the film section of the American Actors Guild Award, including Yoon Yeo-jung, actors of color swept away trophies. The Best Actor Award was awarded to the Netflix music film Mar Rainy, She is the Blues, the only film by Chadwick Bossman, who passed away from cancer last year, and Viola Davis of the movie also won the Best Actress Award. The Best Supporting Actor Award was awarded by Daniel Kaluya of the true story of the film “Judah and Black Messiah,” and all black actors received the Best Supporting Actor Award in the individual category except Yoon Yeo-jung. The ensemble award for all the cast members was awarded by black actor Yahia Abdul Martin II, starring Aaron Sorkin’s Netflix movie “Trial of the Chicago 7,” alongside white actors such as Joseph Gordon Levitt, Eddie Redmain, Michael Keaton and Sasha Baron Cohen.
The results of this award, hosted by the American Actors Association, are often linked to the Academy Acting Awards, so it is also called the’Oscar Preview’. Accordingly, it is interpreted that the Academy Awards ceremony, which has been striving for diversity in recent years, may produce the largest number of winners of color this year.

‘Minari’, which was nominated for work, director, screenplay, actor, supporting actress, and music in six categories, is also considered a strong nominee for the award at the 93rd Academy Awards, which will be held non-face-to-face on the 25th (local time). There are 104 film awards that have been awarded so far, from the Jury Awards and Audience Awards at the Sundance Film Festival in January when the film was first released to the Golden Globe Foreign Language Film Awards in February. Of these, only 36 are Yoon Yeo-jung’s best supporting actors. If he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, he would set a new record for Korean actors.

Reporter Na Won-jeong [email protected]