Ha Yeon-sook

Growing up

To Yeon-sook, clothes were less things to choose for their looks than things to fit so someone could wear them comfortably again. Beside her mother's alterations table she often saw customers unable to say exactly what was uncomfortable. She learned belatedly that a customer who said the problem was the waist might actually find it hard to sit down. That experience taught her to notice other people's small movements, but also left a habit of thinking she knows even the needs they have not voiced. Outside the house she seems like someone who never forgets anything, yet she often forgets her own umbrella and gloves. Her reputation for being well organized is less her whole character than the result of the focus she brings to the job in hand.

Why acting

After a garment-making course she helped with costume alterations for small productions and saw the stage up close. It fascinated her that when an actor set their shoulders differently in the same clothes, they became a person of an entirely different trade. More than a chance offer to go on stage, it was the wish to watch such scenes again and again that led her to evening classes. In her first class she missed an important line because she was straightening the end of a sleeve instead of looking at her partner. Yeon-sook long remembered being told that skilled hands can sometimes become a way to avoid people. Playing Mi-gyeong in the 1998 play “The Alterations Room Under the Stairs”, she learned first of all that skill off stage and skill as an actor are not the same.

Turning points

In the early years she kept up costume work to get through months with few appearances. Playing the laundry owner in “Saturday Ironing” in 2006, she matched working pace with Nam Kyung-hee as the new employee. The experience that the scene came alive only when she waited instead of moving her partner's hands for her stayed with her for a long time. Yet as her career grew she forgot that lesson and set about fixing the rehearsal room's problems, large and small, herself. In preparing one production in 2017 she moved a colleague's props without agreement, and the colleague had to relearn their blocking. Yeon-sook admitted that her first apology, explaining that she had meant well, was an excuse, and since then she has put consent between a sentence offering help and actually laying a hand on something.

Up close

Her low voice and the way she quietly sees to what others need make her seem impeccably neat.

She loves puns and is notably bad at framing family photos. At home, even with her to-do list written out, she stops what she is doing when a funny story comes on the radio.

Preparing a scene

On a first read she marks what the character has to do and what she wants to do with different signs. Once costume and props are set, she checks where things pull when she moves and adjusts it with the staff. In the second rehearsal she plays the same scene without using her hands. At the end she puts back only the actions that are truly needed, so technique does not hide feeling.

When she spots a costume problem she explains it to the person in charge rather than touching the actor herself. She checks the pace of the first take with her scene partner, and gives real reactions in rehearsals her partner asks for even when it is not her turn. While waiting, she reads the room before a pun and keeps it short.

The texture of the acting

• Holding her upper body on its axis, she varies how long her gaze rests to control the pressure of a silence.
• In a low, firm middle voice, without raising the volume, she makes the start of each consonant distinct to give an instruction weight.
• While the other person hands her something, whether she reaches out first or waits shows the ranking in the relationship.

A day off stage

In the morning she gets up later than her family and tries yesterday's radio pun again at the table. Even if none of the three of them laughs, she laughs first on her own and washes the cups. In the afternoon she takes out just one garment to mend and finishes it, leaving the rest in the box. On the evening walk she leaves choosing the destination to her spouse, and even when she wants to turn the other way, she follows at least once.