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“Yeom Hye-ran was asked to act, but instead, she has become a shaman dancing on the blade of a knife.” “You can see Anton Chigurh (character from the movie ‘No Country for Old Men’) in Kim Kyung-ja (character name in the drama).”
This drama is written as “Mask Girl,” but it should be read as Kim Kyung-ja’s revenge play. To be more precise, it’s actress Yeom Hye-ran’s special stage for walking on the knife-edge.
Released on Netflix on the 18th, “Mask Girl” tells the story of Kim Mo-mi, a working woman with appearance-related insecurities, who gets entangled in an unintended incident while she broadcasts online every night with her face covered by a mask. Rising actor Lee Han-byeol, Nana, and Go Hyun-jung take on the role of “Mask Girl,” portraying the changing face of the character due to plastic surgery and the passage of time, all played by three different actresses in one role.
Yeom Hye-ran does not appear on the main poster and her name is mentioned third in press releases. However, right after the drama’s release, Yeom Hye-ran is the first name to appear on Korean movie and drama rating communities. In the drama, Yeom plays “Kim Kyung-ja,” a woman who separated from her cheating husband when her son was three years old, but says, “It was bearable because I had my son Oh-nam.” Her son is the reason for her existence and the reward of her life. Willing to do anything for her son, including being a housemaid, cleaning toilets, and delivering Chinese food takeout, the indomitable Kim Kyung-ja becomes a figure driven by madness, capable of kidnapping, imprisoning, and even murdering after losing her son.
Yeom Hye-ran, holding a rifle with short hair, is no longer the same person who used to bully her nephew to get her dead sister’s insurance money in tvN’s “Goblin (2016) “ as Ji Yeon-sook. Nor is she the lawyer Hong Ja-young in KBS’s “When the Camellia Blooms (2019),” known as her “first role as a highly educated intellectual.” Kang Hyun-nam, the “battered but cheerful” character in Netflix’s “The Glory (2022),” is also nowhere to be seen. Only a touch of Anton Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem) in the movie “No Country for Old Men (2008),” famously known as “the most terrifying human butcher” in the entire film history, can be sensed. She’s already been nicknamed “Yeom-Bardem.”
During the production press conference, director Kim Yong-hoon mentioned, “Yeom Hye-ran has a very complex expression, intense and melancholic at the same time. I was so captivated with her look that it made me decide that I had to work with her.”
In reality, Yeom Hye-ran is five years younger than actress Go Hyun-jung. Hailing from Yeosu in South Jeolla Province, she graduated from Seoul Women’s University with a major in Korean language, and once dreamed of becoming a Korean language teacher. However, she discovered her passion for acting during her university theater club activities. In 1999, she joined a theater company and made her debut in the play “Teacher Choi” in 2000. Over the next 20 years, she steadily built her career in the theater industry. In past interviews, she pointed to her “face” as the driving force behind her ability to consistently perform. She mentioned, “When I first stepped onto the theater stage, the other actors were pretty and slim. They were suited to be lead characters, so to speak. Consequently, there was a lack of actresses to play supporting roles like mothers or middle-aged women. When I joined as a member, I looked suitable for roles like middle-aged women, so I quickly got various opportunities.”
It was through the 2016 tvN drama “Goblin” that she truly gained recognition from the public. In the drama, she played the role of Eun-tak’s (played by Kim Go-eun) aunt and villain, Lee Jae-sook, and fulfilled her wish of “not being able to go outside because of so much criticism.” She reunited with screenwriter Kim Eun-sook, who she worked with in “Goblin”, again in “The Glory.” Kim Eun-sook mentioned, “Yeom Hye-ran was the first casting choice in my heart,” adding, “I wrote the script with Yeom Hye-ran in mind from the beginning.”
At the production press conference before the release of Mask Girl, Yeom Hye-ran said, “It was so radical and shocking that I had a lot of worries and concerns about whether I could manage to act in such a bold work.” However, she also added, “Honestly, Kim Kyung-ja is a character that we have never seen before and will probably never see again. Because of that, as an actress, I felt ambitious to take on the role, realizing that everyone would want to play this character.” In reality, the drama deals with harsh themes such as nudity, rape, and murder, creating initial barriers for the audience. However, thanks to Yeom Hye-ran’s ambition, viewers are able to witness a new dimension of maternal acting that she brings to life.
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