Through filmmaker PARK Suk-young’s ‘Flower Trilogy’ which includes Wild Flowers (2015), Steel Flower (2016) and Ash Flower, actress JEONG Ha-dam has emerged as a rising star on the Korean independent film scene portraying teenage runaway, ‘Ha-dam’. Ha-dam, at the young age of 16, experiences the bitter world with her girlfriends who are also runaways in Wild Flowers. Surviving on her own is the lesson Ha-dam who has just entered adulthood learns as she moves from one deserted house to another in Steel Flower, and finally amid the peace she has found, she embraces the 11 year-old Hae-byul who is placed in the same predicament as she in Ash Flower which was released in early July. Over the past 3 years actress JEONG Ha-dam has laughed and cried while growing with her screen character. We had the chance to speak with this up and coming actress who has gone through a somewhat special experience. 

 

I was preparing to apply for theater and film school, but my nerves got to me and I ended up failing every school after being too nervous in front of the professors auditioning me. (laughs) That’s why I sought out auditions in order to train myself to perform in front of others. But for a person whose only experience was my high school theater club, there weren't many opportunities out there for me. Then I came across filmmaker PARK Suk-young’s open call to audition for Wild Flowers which required no prior experience in film. I worked hard to prepare myself for the audition which I messed up again. The director must have felt bad for a young person like me and asked me to improvise anything. There’s a scene in Wild Flowers where one of the three main characters, who are all members of a runaway family, is reunited with the rest after running off with the money they had saved up together. I was supposed to hit the girl as I spewed words of resentment at her, but because I never hit anyone in my life, I could only cry instead of hitting her. I guess the director was impressed with this as he cast me in Wild Flowers. 

When I was visiting the Busan International Film Festival with Wild Flowers, the director told me he’d like to work on a smaller project than Wild Flowers which portrayed Ha-dam 5 years later. After Steel Flower, the director and I started believing that Ha-dam was someone who was actually living somewhere in this world. It wasn’t a trilogy from the beginning, but the remaining two films seemed to have been made out of the desire to see more of this character, Ha-dam. 

Steel Flower ends with fierce waves slapping against Ha-dam as she looks straight into the camera. Afterwards, she would probably return to the deserted house, light a candle, and then doze off. Maybe at that moment, she could have been recalling the time her heart was broken for the first time in her life. As the director explained this to me, he said he wanted to “make a film whereby the now stronger Ha-dam consoles a younger Ha-dam who was hurt in the past”. Ha-dam in Ash Flower finds stability after meeting a goodhearted adult. Then one day, she sees her own childhood years in the 11 year-old Hae-byul (CHANG Hae-geum) who has set out on a long journey to find her father. At first I was afraid that the Ha-dam character we’ve worked hard to create would fall apart if I didn’t do a good job in Ash Flower. But when I saw the completed film, I also felt a sense of consolation from it. 

The Ha-dam in Wild Flowers was someone who struggled because she didn’t want to destroy her relationship with the older girls of her runaway family. But as she moved onto Steel Flower, she became so much stronger as a person. She was a big hearted, noble character. I always felt bad for my character Ha-dam as I kept questioning myself whether I was expressing her well. But it turned out that the audience didn’t quite discover the tender and beautiful heart that Ha-dam had. That’s why I wanted to show those who had seen Steel Flower that she was this kind of person in Ash Flower. I wanted to portray her as someone who was a more big-hearted and wiser person because she went through so much. 

Since I didn’t have a clue when I was working on Wild Flowers, I asked many questions to the director about the script. I was quite straightforward, even stating certain lines didn’t quite suit the character. The director said this helped him a lot and wanted me to help him brainstorm while working on the script. That’s how things like Ha-dam cutting a tennis ball to use as a change purse, or lines like “You know why a foxtail is called by that name?” was put in Ash Flower. There’s a scene in Ash Flower when tension between the characters hit the roof over the secret about Hae-byul’s birth and all eyes are directed at Ha-dam. In the original script, there was a stage direction written as ‘Ha-dam’s face’, but I wanted her to say something to the adults when she witnesses the same situation she had been placed in as a child. I suggested this to the director who said he trusted the instincts of someone who played Ha-dam for the past 3 years. That’s how the line, “She’s 11 years old!” came to be. 

But I know it’s no use thinking about it. (laughs) I just want to focus on what I am working on and be content with what I have at the moment. But I do have ambitions as an actress. I want to keep acting until I turn 80. In order to do so, I need to become more famous and continue to prove myself with good work. I’m not good at everything, but within the boundaries of ‘acting’, I think this is the best effort I can make. I want to be an actress who works hard at what I do.