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Shin Hae Sun sits for an interview for her latest Netflix release The Art of Sarah.
The Art of Sarah tells the story of a woman, Sarah Kim (Shin Hae Sun), who wanted to embody luxury. She is suddenly labelled as the victim in a murder case. Digging deep into Sarah's mystery is Detective Park Mu Gyeong (Lee Jun Hyuk), who traces her desires only to uncover shocking truths.
Shin plays the titular role of Sarah Kim, a mysterious woman with many faces.
Talking about how she prepared for the drama, Shin explained, "I did read the script, but it was a bit different from the [preparation] routine I have had up until now. I'm not someone who can look at the bigger picture, so I tend to focus just on my own stuff. I mainly look at my own part [character]. So I usually enter filming after forming a clear plan about how I would portray the character. But with The Art of Sarah, it wasn't like that. I was curious about how it would turn out, and those kinds of plans didn't really come together. Rather than thinking, 'I'll do it this way' or 'I'll do it that way,' I felt that I would have to prepare once I got to the set.
"If we look at it in terms of Sarah Kim, she's someone who has to cajole people no matter what, and since she has to pretend to be a woman from the upper class, she needs to appear elegant. As for Mok Ga Hee, I just thought she should either feel raw or give off that kind of vibe. That was about as much as I had in mind."
When asked whether she had ever regretted choosing the project while filming or had at any point in time found it so difficult that she wanted to give up, Shin answered, "Honestly, yes. It wasn't hard — well, it wasn't hard like that. Physically, I did think it was genuinely difficult. But it was difficult because that point of difficulty wasn't clear. Viewers may have seen a lot of characters like this, but in my experience, this was the first time I'd played a character with such an ambiguous emotional line. Up until now, I've always had a distinct emotional line." She added, "The thing about running toward a desire is similar, but the emotional narrative that builds up in the character along the way is layered and ambiguous, so it was difficult."
Further explaining where she faced difficulty, Shin expressed, "Just like Jun Hyuk sunbae said, the interrogation-room scenes were the toughest. I felt anxious because I didn't have a plan for how I, as actress Shin Hae Sun, should act it out."
She continued, "As an actor, it's really unsettling to have to act in front of the camera while not knowing how you're going to do it. The interrogation-room scenes were exactly like that for me," adding, "Sunbae suggested we do a reading before filming, but the timing didn't work out, so we went straight in. I think the pressure may have made me feel sick too."
What, then, made her choose The Art of Sarah despite all that?
Shin Hae Sun said, "One character has multiple personas, and various characters become entangled with that one person. It's not an easy or straightforward drama. It can be confusing, and some things may not feel easy [to grasp] — and that's even more so when you're reading the script. That's what piqued my curiosity. The dynamics between the characters were unusual and interesting. Even when reading the script, I couldn't tell whether the character was being sincere or not. But the conclusion we reached among ourselves was that, at least in that moment, she would be sincere. So I found it interesting that the emotional arc never fully settled into something definite. The thing I said was difficult stems from that. It's about the character's subtext — when you talk about why she moves the way she does and why she behaves the way she does, I couldn't really read the subtext embedded in the lines.
"When I thought about why that was, I realized it might be because the character's actions toward others are, in that moment, sincere but might not be, and it was the ambiguity that made it hard to read the subtext. When I play other roles, I act with a sense of certainty... But with Sarah Kim, I couldn't feel that certainty. Since things change depending on the choices made, making those choices is something you have to be careful about, you know. I had to act it ambiguously as written in the script, and that made it difficult."
Her way of coping, she said, was snacks. "I lessened the weight of difficulties by eating snacks, to the point that the team made me a 'snack bag,'" adding, "Honestly, it wasn't so much that I felt proud because I pulled it off. When portraying the character, there was this thing that felt emotionally complex to me in a very internal way, and I benefited a lot from the production team's help in bringing that out more clearly. And when I watched the final product, it did come out with the feeling I had imagined, so I found it rewarding in my own way."
Shin reunited with Lee Jun Hyuk for the first time in nine years since the 2017 drama Stranger. Speaking about working with him, the actress said, "If it weren't for him, I don't think I would've been able to finish filming."
She continued, "There were times when I had to trust my scene partner's acting and follow his lead. If it hadn't been for the flow of his performance, I think I would've been all over the place," adding, "It may sound like a cliché, but we truly, truly, truly had great synergy."
So how satisfied was she with the interrogation scenes? Shin said with a smile, "I didn't even know whether I did a good job or not, so it's not like I had a level of satisfaction. I was just thinking, 'I got through it.'"
Shin Hye Sun also spoke about the series' global success, saying, "Before I even had a chance to check the reactions myself, so many people reached out to me. I thought it was my birthday. During the Lunar New Year holiday, I received more messages saying, 'I really enjoyed The Art of Sarah,' than New Year's greetings. So it felt really amazing. It had been a while. I've been working nonstop, but I got so many congratulatory messages — like someone who had just debuted. What's interesting is that hearing people say, 'Congrats,' actually made me feel really good."
Talking about the praise she's been receiving, Shin Hae Sun said, "I just placed my spoon on a table that had already been beautifully set. That's really how it was. The costume and makeup teams, the staff — they all worked incredibly hard in their own roles. They're people I really want to thank. They made Sarah Kim's makeup look beautiful, and when they heard that the looks were being praised, the costume and makeup teams got excited too."
"The wardrobe and hair-and-makeup teams perfected [the character] doing their absolute best, down to the finest details." "All I had was a sense of 'glamor' and 'elegance', but which eyeshadow to use and which lenses to wear were all decisions the teams carefully worked out." "As you'll notice if you watch the drama, the puffiness in my face goes up and down. It's because I ate a lot of snacks while filming. And even if I couldn't quite bring myself to manage it properly, the wardrobe and hair-and-makeup teams covered it really well with contouring, makeup, and clothes tailored to my body. Thanks to how well they managed my outward appearance, I think [the character] came across well in the final work."
"So, in a way, if they hadn't made my hair and makeup look pretty, (my acting) might not have come through — so I think I placed the spoon well [I was able to ride on their great work]."
Stream The Art of Sarah on Netflix.
