[HanCinema's News] Ra Mi-ran Talks About Late Blooming Career

At the age of forty-seven, Ra Mi-ran is an unlikely box office draw. Yet that's exactly the position the veteran actress finds herself in, seventeen years after her screen debut in "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" in 2005. In a recent interview, Ra Mi-ran described this interest as stemming from her realization that acting was fun. This motivated her to study, and soon Ra Mi-ran was succeeding in ninety percent of her auditions.

Advertisement

These being audition roles, Ra Mi-ran was better known for the quantity of her work than the quality of it, even as her face gradually became more recognizable over time. It was on the strength of this familiarity that Ra Mi-ran got her first major mainstrea film role in "Miss and Mrs. Cops" where she played a veteran police officer alongside the more conventionally young Lee Sung-kyung in the comedy film.

That movie earned 1.69 million admissions at the box office. Then in 2020 "An Honest Candidate" earned 1.53 million admissions and the dubious honor of the last movie to earn that many viewers as the COVID-19 pandeic intensified. "An Honest Candidate 2" is now the best performing film at the South Korean box office, having released on September 28th. Ra Mi-ran has described her role in the franchise as a gift, and a testament to the unpredictability of life.

Ra Mi-ran claimed to be burdened the first time she was offered such leading roles, expressing uncertainty about whether she could shoulder a whole production off of her own charisma. Yet Ra Mi-ran grabbed the moment, and has determined ever since to grab the waves of life one day at a time and just work as hard as she can. Ra Mi-ran was even skeptical of "An Honest Candidate 2" noting that the film was only a modest, and not a huge succss.

For all her doubts, Ra Mi-ran decided that she had to at least try. Despite her reputation as a comedy queen, Ra Mi-ran claims that she doesn't act to make the audience laugh, but to stay true to her character- and that of all the approaches attempted, it's up to her director to choose the one that works. Ra Mi-ran also noted that she wants to keep working as long as she can just like her current high-profile seniors, and expects to be able to do so until she's at least fifty-five.

Written by William Schwartz