'Mother roles are diverse enough to make a whole genre'

Actress Kim Hae-sook / Courtesy of June&I

Actress speaks of mother roles

By Park Jin-hai

Actress Kim Hae-sook was given the nickname "National Mother." Since she earned recognition for her role in the 2000 hit drama "Autumn in My Heart" playing the role of the mother of the lead actress Song Hye-kyo, Kim has garnered so many "mother" roles in dramas and films.

The 63-year old veteran actress has at times played the role of a less educated, street smart middle aged mother with short-permed hair in romantic comedies, other times she was a mother who scarifies herself for her children. In the ongoing KBS drama "Mother of Mine," she plays a down-to-earth mother who always argues with her three daughters.

Kim says she once felt that her mother roles were like something that limited her acting spectrum. "When my roles were fixed to mothers, I really wanted to get out of it and play someone else. To me, then, all mother characters were deemed as the same old things. I felt some stress, too," she said during a recent interview. "Being afraid that I might be replicating myself, I worked up to portray my new mother role differently from the previous ones. I felt like I was walking a hazy road, without knowing where I was going," she said

Then her 2006 movie "Sunflower" changed her mind, she says. It made her realize that all mothers are in fact different. In the film Kim played a mother who adopts her son's killer and takes care of him.

"Then I realized that even if motherly love is one word to describe it, depicting all mothers with their own histories and circumstances cannot be the same. So each mother has their own way of expressing that motherly love," she said. "Now I say to people that mother characters are diverse enough to make a whole genre. My wish is to play all the different mothers that exist in the world."

Kim has returned to the big screen with yet another version of a mother this time. In the movie "The Big Shot," released on April 18, she plays widowed mother Soon-ok who wants to give her all for her son who is on death row.
The mother, who doesn't know how to write, learns Hangeul in order to write petition letters to save her son.

In her clumsy hand-written letter to her imprisoned son, Soon-ok wrote "I will become the wind and I will always stay beside you."
Kim said that letter reminded of her own mother who passed away five years ago. "When I was reading that part, I was in tears," she said.

"This is a small movie but while watching this film, I hope people will be able to think about their families and loved ones they take for granted. Nowadays, there aren't many movies telling stories of family. In this moment, I think it is meaningful to have a movie that tells a beautiful touching family story."

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