“I mean, I can’t pretend that I didn’t also somewhat enjoy myself.”
But there was a problem.
Illustration by Hsiao-Ron Cheng
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Did you audition for this?
Greta Lee, John Magaro, and Teo Yoo in ‘Past Lives’.Jon Pack/A24
Were you approached for it?
I’m really curious if you had to fight off anyone to play Nora Moon.
GRETA LEE:Oh, yeah, this didn’t used to be mine.
Greta Lee and Teo Yoo in ‘Past Lives’.Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Jon Pack
Oh, no, not at all.
I read the script in one sitting and was completely destroyed by the script.
But what does that mean?
Illustration by Hsiao-Ron Cheng
Without a thought in your mind, you really thought,theres no way I will get this?
For someone like me, you get used to this idea that there are such limited opportunities.
So this came along and I auditioned for it and I didn’t get it.
Director Celine Song and Greta Lee on the set of ‘Past Lives’.Courtesy of Twenty Years Rights/A24 Films
Are you free essentially now to meet with the director?
It was just the two of us.
And then I got to hear from her what her vision for the movie was and we just talked.
Greta Lee and Teo Yoo in ‘Past Lives’.Jon Pack/A24
And at the end of it, she offered me the job.
I sent it to my agent like, I think she just offered me the job.
But can you go find out if that’s for real?
Teo Yoo, Greta Lee, and John Magaro in ‘Past Lives’.Courtesy of Twenty Years Rights/A24 Films
Let’s get that confirmation for sure.
I do believe in timing.
All of those things really added up to this moment.
I can’t help but feel like it is cosmic.
It does feel like in-yun.
I only know my own journey too.
What’s it like?
For me, I just feel as actors, you’re never entitled to anything.
It’s tough out there.
You have to really want it.
That’s absolutely true.
But I have really tried to make the best of it.
Nora is very driven and she is dedicated to her art and dedicated to making a name for herself.
But, of course, curiosity and love and companionship are very strong magnetic forces.
I have to focus on me.
You rarely see characters make that kind of decision because it could stop the story cold in its tracks.
As you were reading, were you worried about how things were going to progress from there?
No, because from the beginning that’s what was really exciting to me about doing this.
‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’.PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES
It’s more about her love of her own life.
It’s the one that she has with her own life.
Just thinking about that makes my skin tingle.
I can really appreciate what that means as a modern woman, but just as modern people.
Our lives have never been more expansive.
It is possible to have a relationship with someone across continents.
Jamie Foxx accepts the Best Actor award at the 77th Oscars.TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty
We can do that.
So I could appreciate that the movie almost starts at that moment when she says, No, goodbye.
That, for me, is the beginning.
Like, what’s it like to be a young person?
Like,sure, yeah, let’s pick up where we left off, new year.
It’s like an algorithm.
Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in ‘Notorious’.Everett
So it’s that innocence of, Yeah, I’ll see you later.
So, she had asked that I keep the two guys separate from each other.
That is when John and Teo, the actors, were actually meeting for the first time.
I had to do that free of the other one.
It was slightly sadistic on Celines end.
And Id say, Wow.
What an incredible performer.
Like, what instincts.
And John asked, Okay, so hes really handsome but, like, was he funnier than me?
[Laughs] And Teo is asking about John likewise: How good of an actor is he?
Celine was interested in this idea of just not letting us touch.
Im thinking about the force of Nora’s hug.
It’s such a tight embrace and it said so much.
But now knowing that there are so many more layers to that, it makes me a bit emotional.
We watched that and, facially, what that experience is.
We watched Korean dating shows, missed connection dating shows.
It is so fascinating.
What is about to happen?
It should have that sense of, like, this is torture, it is going on forever.
And then also, before you know, it’s over.
Which is sort of an essence of life.
That’s the quality of living that we are after.
That was one of the hardest days.
Oscars Flashback
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty
[My grandmother] was my first acting teacher.
She told me, ‘Stand up straight.
Put your shoulders back.Actlike you got some sense.’
… And she still talks to me now; only now she talks to me in my dreams.
And I can’t wait to go to sleep tonight because we got a lot to talk about."
As CIA agent Devlin, he subverts his elegant charm into cold professionalism.
