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| Actor Shin Min-ah / Courtesy of AM Entertainment |
By Kwak Yeon-soo
With an acting career spanning 20 years, Shin Min-ah has proved her versatile talent by effortlessly molding herself into a variety of roles.
After debuting as the captain of the school's kendo (Japanese martial art) team in "Volcano High School" (2001), the actor endeared herself with the public in roles in rom-coms such as "My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho" (2010) and "My Love, My Bride" (2014). As a result, she is now regarded as equally capable as both serious and light-hearted characters.
Shin has now taken on a new challenge to play a professional diver who strives for perfection in the psychological thriller "Diva."
"It felt important to try something completely new and do something that breaks the barrier. I was drawn to the script's intense and female-centric storyline. The subject of diving was also intriguing," she said during an online interview with The Korea Times, Thursday.
"If there's anything that can be taken away from this film, I'd like the audience to say 'Wow, she's so different.'"
In "Diva," Shin plays Yi-young, a diving champion whose life is turned upside down after a horrific car accident with her best friend/rival Soo-jin (Lee You-young). After driving the car off a cliff, she survives but Soo-jin goes missing.
Yi-young struggles with post-traumatic stress and memory loss, but tries hard to recover and win the next competition. Then rumors swirl about Soo-jin, and Yi-young realizes her best friend might not be who she originally thought she was.
As she delves deeper into her best friend's well-hidden past, she realizes that her understudy has tried to outperform her ― and a dark side of Yi-young begins to emerge.
The 36-year-old actor revealed striking stories that occurred during the filming of a movie that centers on the obsessive search for perfection.
"I started preparing for the role more than four months in advance to make my body look like that of a professional diver," Shin said. "I trained for four to five hours a day to build muscle mass and learn diving techniques."
However, Shin said she focused more on how to express Yi-young's radical transformation ― depicting how her character subtly goes insane.
"Yi-young may be a deeply disturbing character, but I was able to empathize with her. We all have fears, insecurities, regrets and feelings of guilt, don't we?" she said.
Shin shared her thoughts on being an actor. "I'm so grateful for the fact that I've found a profession that I truly enjoy and this pushes me to do better. I really can't imagine myself doing anything else," she said.
"Right now, I don't have any new project in mind. But I'm sure it'll take less than six years (the time it took her to return with 'Diva') to come back with another film. I'll try to find a character or a story that is different from those I've done before."
"Diva" will hit local theaters Sept. 23.
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