Other than my primary language, which is English. LEE: I never expected to do a movie in Korean with this much Korean - a movie in any other language. I can speak so much better than people are giving me credit for. LEE: He can't, and he is fully cognizant of that.ĬHANG: Did you surprise yourself that you could speak Korean so well in this movie? Were you, like, kind of re-accessing this deep reservoir in your own brain? Like, oh, I know this. So that scene - yeah, that scene when she's talking to Arthur about it - it is so personal the fact that her husband can identify that that is something that is a place that he can't go. And - but what I feel like what that was honing in on is there is so much to the way we hold on to - whether it's our native language or our second language and what that relationship is like. But can you actually speak Korean? You can speak Korean? How good is your Korean? Oh, no. And actually, you know, I was, like, surprised and kind of tickled by the response from my friends and family initially when they heard that I was taking this on - this kind of reaction collectively of, like, oh my God. LEE: Well, there's something so exposing about language, right? I mean, my language, my Koreanness (ph) is something that's so private. And.ĬHANG: She didn't even know that that was what was happening. LEE: So in certain ways, it was so crucial to really hone in on and be really specific in certain cases about, well, is she going to sound - how Asian does she sound? How Korean does she sound at the beginning of a scene as opposed to the end of the scene after, let's say, several hours of talking to Hae Sung in Korean? And just being mindful of all of that, I mean, was a reflection of what this experience is that we're talking about - of living in the in-between, experiencing that full spectrum of Western and Eastern and - you know?ĬHANG: Oh, my God, like, especially that moment when Nora's lying in bed with her husband and he mentions that she talks in her sleep in Korean. And we wanted to bring that to the character in this story. And when you mention, like, OK, feeling more Asian around certain people or less, that kind of fluctuation is something that is so real and personal to me. But if you look at, let's say, the language aspect of it, it was so important to accurately convey the fluidity of language. LEE: In Nora's case, she's Korean Canadian. Greta Lee and I talked about how her character, Nora, embodied that tension in this film. And I feel so not Korean when I'm with him but also, in some way, more Korean - so weird.ĬHANG: It's a sentiment that felt so familiar to me as a Taiwanese American woman, that feeling of living in between - between Western and Eastern, between kinship and distance. He has all these really Korean views about everything. LEE: (As Nora) He still lives with his parents, which is really Korean. Reconnecting with him prompts all kinds of questions for Nora about the path she chose in life and how her decisions have reshaped her identity. Hae Sung tracks her down decades later in New York. Is this what you pictured for yourself - laying in bed in some tiny apartment in the East Village with some Jewish guy who writes books?ĬHANG: That's Greta Lee starring as Nora, who left Korea as a kid and left behind her childhood sweetheart, Hae Sung. GRETA LEE: (As Nora) When I was a 12-year-old? JOHN MAGARO: (As Arthur) Is this what you imagined for yourself when you left Seoul? But they're so different in so many other ways. Nora and Arthur from the new movie "Past Lives" have a loving marriage and a fulfilling creative partnership.
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