Yoona becomes the devil she fakes

Korea Herald

3 days ago

K-pop icon trades pristine image for cartoonish evil in upcoming rom-com
"I think I have both sides in me — that's why I was drawn to these characters," Lim Yoona says at a Samcheong-dong cafe on Thursday. She's talking about her dual role in "Pretty Crazy," where she plays a picture-perfect bakery owner who transforms into a demon every night with no memory of it come morning.
For nearly two decades, Yoona has been Korea's sweetheart. She's been the face of dozens of brands and the star of TV dramas everyone's mother watches, all while perpetually glowing with a celebrity aura. This time around, she's trading that impeccable image for something wildly off-brand: a girl whose nocturnal possession turns her into a maniac in frizzy hair and clashing patterns, wreaking havoc until dawn.
"Pretty Crazy" reunites Yoona with director Lee Sang-geun, who gave her a career-defining lead in 2019's disaster comedy "Exit." Now this one's an exercise in pure comic-book silliness, where an unemployed man (Ahn Bo-hyun) takes a part-time job watching his demon-possessed neighbor through her nightly episodes.
Other than being largely forgettable, the breathtakingly mediocre film has one undeniable virtue of giving viewers a front-row seat to Yoona torching her image with gleeful abandon.
Her daytime Seon-ji is predictable — sweet, elegant, the girl you'd bring home to mom. After dark, she becomes something like Jim Carrey on a bender with her voice rocketing between growls and squeaks, and her body contorting through scenes where she's scarfing down grass, sprinting through streets like a feral cat and, best of all, taking a cannonball dive into the Han River.
"I thought at first it might be embarrassing on set with all the staff watching," she admits. "But once we started rolling, I just fell into it completely. Sometimes I wondered — isn't this too much? But the exaggeration was the whole point."
The character is much more than a woman possessed, she explains. She's someone young and desperately insecure, trying to act scary, overcompensating with big gestures and wild expressions. "The demon has to seem like she's faking it, because she is."
Even finding the right laugh took weeks. She and director Lee tested different tones, volumes and rhythms until they landed on something appropriately unhinged. "That laugh became the baseline for everything else. Once I had that, I knew exactly how big to go with everything."
"Not that I laugh like that in real life," she adds quickly.
At 35, Yoona still occupies that rarefied air in Korean entertainment. She centered Girls' Generation through their 18-year reign as Asia's biggest girl group. Her acting success came immediately when her 2008 drama "You Are My Destiny" hit 41.5 percent viewership ratings, numbers that aren't seen anymore. Her stature has only grown over the past decade: "Exit" became 2019's surprise box office smash and "King the Land" dominated Netflix globally in 2023.
Her career has been one long victory lap in an industry where most flame out within years.
"People see this smooth trajectory, but I'm constantly questioning myself," she says. "Every project starts as a question mark. Can I do this? How should I approach it? I overthink everything, then work until that question becomes an exclamation point."
The self-doubt seems at odds with someone who's been winning since seventeen, but even superstars like Yoona can't escape doubts about what comes next. She debuted at 17 as the fresh-faced center of a girl group. Eighteen years later, she's a seasoned veteran figuring out which challenges she still wants to take on.
"In my 20s, I thought I could solve everything through experience. Now I realize real choices require knowing yourself. What does Lim Yoon-ah actually like, separate from Yoona of Girls' Generation or Yoona the actress?"
She pauses, as if to consider the weight of that question. "Maybe that's what maturing means? Finally asking those questions?"