Keeping Character

Decoding the many faces of Doona Bae.

- Joie Goh

WHEN IT COMES to unconventional roles, Doona Bae has played a baker’s dozen, whether it’s her debut role as the South Korean version of the infamous killer ghost Sadako in “The Ring Virus”, or a vengeful archer in Bong Joon-ho’s “The Host”, or a lesbian policewoman in the critically acclaimed Cannes favourite “A Girl at My Door”. The 38-year-old South Korean actress is also a Wachowski favourite, having played one of the key roles in the multi-generational saga “Cloud Atlas”, an almost-unrecognisable turn as a bounty hunter in the space opera “Jupiter Ascending” and led the cast of the short-lived-but-beloved Netflix series “Sense8”.

So, it might come as a surprise to find out that the real-life Doona Bae, unlike her usually spunky appearances in film and television, is more reserved and withdrawn, and almost dream-like in her reticence. She speaks slowly, almost languidly, with the tendency to get lost in thought mid-sentence before returning sheepishly back to Earth.

Most of her responses were non-committal. For example, she expressed a sort of bashfulness when quizzed about her early days as an actress, as though embarrassed about even wanting to act in the first place. “I was scouted on the streets as a model, so I actually started modelling first, and I wasn’t interested in acting,” she says. “When I was young, about five or six, my mum was a theatre actress and I grew up watching her plays.”

Being around her mother, veteran stage actress Kim Hwa Young, meant being around other professional actors, and instead of inspiring young Bae into a life of dramatic expression, it had the opposite effect. “They were too big, you know?” she says, with a small laugh. “It was like, they were born to be great actors and I was too shy and I didn’t dare to dream of being an actor.”