Doona Bae 배두나

The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer. She is also known for her role as archer Park Nam-ju in B**g Joon-ho's ''The Host" (2006), and is highly regarded for her roles as the protagonist's political activist girlfriend Cha Young-mi in Park Chan-wook's ''Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance'' (2002) and the Japanese ''Air Doll'' (2009).

== Life and career ==
Doona Bae was born in Seoul, South Korea. She has one older brother Doo-Han and one younger Tae-Han. Growing up, she would follow her mother Kim Hwa-yeong who's a renowned stage actress in Korea, around the theater and rehearsal halls, learning the lines of dialogue as she went along. This did not initially lead Bae towards acting, saying: "People might say that since my mother is a theater actor, I became an actress. But to me, those experiences probably had the opposite effect. On the contrary, because I saw many great actors working with my mother, I thought this was a job only people with extraordinary talent could do." Her father, also a former stage actor has now retired from acting for business. While studying at the ''Hanyang University'' - Major in Theater and Cinema (1998-2000, dropped out), she was walking the streets of Seoul in 1998 when she was recruited on the spot by a modeling agency, which got her into catalogues. Bae is known for her eclectic and fashion-forward style sense, and isn't considered a drop-dead beautiful actress, but natural looking with unique facial features, without any plastic surgery. Doona is everything but shallow. She's shown off her acting chops and concerned herself with taking the most interesting, not most glamorous roles. She has always been a respected and versatile actress with great acting skills, and been known in Korea for her daring choices and unconventional roles. She has a huge fan base of both men and women as well as the young and old. However, Bae has claimed to know all too well that she does not have a pretty face, and that is how she likes it. "I think I'm lucky not to be so pretty that every man admires me. That means that I can play characters that other actresses can't." She has been famously adored by some of the most celebrated filmmakers in Asia, such as Park Chan-wook, B**g Joon-ho, and Japan's Hirokazu Koreeda, and starred in a variety of TV-dramas. It was her modeling that opened the door for her passion to get herself into the television and film business. At the age of 19 she made the switch to acting, debuting in the Korean TV-drama ''School'', and before that she made appearance in TV-drama ''Angel's Kiss'' on KBS. She also hosted ''Music Camp'' on MBC as well as a DJ on ''Radio TenTen Club'' on SBS. Later the same year at the age of 19, she appeared as the ghost in her first film ''The Ring Virus''; the Korean remake of the Japanese horror film The Ring. In 2000, director ''B**g Joon-ho'' casted her as Hyeon-nam in the dark comedy film ''Barking Dogs Never Bite''. For the role she had to act without any makeup at all, something that not more than a handful of Korean actresses would have the nerve to do. Bae has said: "It was my decision not to put on any makeup in the movie. I had to do it, because that was the only way I could play Song genuinely. I didn't want to look just beautiful wearing heavy makeup." It is that confidence in her ability as an actress that has endeared her to many directors. The performance won her the ''Best New Actress Award'' at the Blue Dragon Film Awards. The same year she gave a risqué performance in ''Plum Blossom''. The role called for several full n**e scenes and rather explicit s*x scenes. For a young actress starting out in the business in Korea, it's a bold move to do nudity of any kind, as it can potentially limit your career options if you get labeled as 'that type' of actress. She learned acting from her mother, the former stage actress Kim Hwa-yeong. When Bae could not make up her mind whether to accept the part in the movie, it was her mother who bawled her out by saying, "Does it make sense for an actress to avoid bed scenes because she is afraid of taking off her clothes and showing her body?", and she went right ahead. That fearlessness is just one of the reasons that makes her so successful. While other Korean actresses become typecast in the same kind of roles, she'll try anything. Bae has said: "As an actress, I hate repeating the same roles in different movies." Park Chan-wook, also director of international hit Old Boy, says Bae is an actress free from stereotypes. She next starred in two critical successes, 2001's ''Take Care of My Cat'', directed by Jeong Jae-eun. The film did not only make Doona a household name in Korea, but also won her critical acclaim as a serious young actress, and she won multiple awards for her performance. She followed up with Park Chan-wook's hit ''Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance'' - the first part in his "Revenge Trilogy", released in 2002. Bae was praised both domestically and abroad for her role as the impressionable radical revolutionary activist youth Cha Young-mi, who's talking her boyfriend into a kidnapping plot, singing Communist songs, and spewing hate on the cultural imperialism of America. The film was named the best movie of 2002 by Harry Knowles of ''Ain't It Cool News'', who praised the acting and the story. In her next film she showed off her comedic skills as she played a young mother in 2002's comedy ''Saving My Hubby''. In 2003, she starred in two films; action thriller ''Tube'' and ''Spring Bears Love''. After completing principal photography on Spring Bears Love, Bae decided to take time off from film, saying: "I never lived even once without having anything to do. The moment a film was presented to the press, I was almost always already shooting the next one. I thought by myself: now my first cycle is really over. While I rest a little, I wanted to make a fresh new start." During her hiatus from the big screen, Bae took up her interest for photography. Some of it can be seen on her official blog and her own published photo books. ''Doona's London Play'' (2006), ''Doona's Tokyo Play'' (2007) and ''Doona's Seoul Play'' (2008). She also continued to work on television, starring in TV-dramas ''Country Princess'' and ''Rosemary''. In 2004, Bae finally stepped onto the theater stage, for a production of ''Sunday Seoul'' (not to be the South Korean movie of the same title), a play co-written with director Park Chan-wook. Her mother, stage actress Kim Hwa-Young played the lead role. In 2005, she starred in the Japanese film ''Linda Linda Linda'', whose name comes from the Japanese punk band The Blue Hearts' hit song ''Linda Linda''. In the film she gave a memorable perfomance as a South Korean foreign exchange student who joins a high school band. Bae was praised for her role that also gained her a Japanese fan base. The students' band ''Paran Maum'' (Korean for "The Blue Hearts"), released a CD single in Japan and South Korea entitled ''We Are Paran Maum''. After that Bae went on to play a divorced woman in the experimental omnibus TV-drama series ''Beating Heart". She reunited with director B**g Joon-ho in 2006's monster film ''The Host'', which became the highest grossing film in South Korean box office history. For her role, she trained in archery for months that she was told if she really wanted, she had enough talent to make it at an amateur level. She then returned to television through the TV-dramas ''Someday'' and ''How to Meet a Perfect Neighbor''. In 2009, she starred in her second Japanese film, the drama ''Air Doll'', by Japanese director ''Hirokazu Koreeda''. It's about middle-aged Hideo who lives alone with an inflatable doll he calls Nozomi, portrayed by Bae. The doll is his closest companion. However, unbeknown to Hideo, Nozomi develops a consciousness, explores the world outside and falls in love. Director Koreeda has stated that the film is about the loneliness of urban life, and the question of what it means to be human. Bae won much accolades for her brilliant performance in which she transforms from a doll to human. She won acting awards from three film festivals in Japan for her performance, and was the first Korean actress to be awarded the Japan Academy Prize. The same year she stepped onto the red carpet at the 2009, where the film world debuted. Bae made back-to-back TV series, playing a high school teacher in '[Master of Study'', and a night club singer in the weekend TV-drama ''Gloria''. In 2011, she portrayed North Korean table tennis player Li Bun-hui in sports film ''As One''. It is based on the true story of the ''World table tennis championship'' 1991 held in Chiba, Japan, where North Korean player Li Bun-hui and South Korean player Hyun Jung-hwa overcame their difficulties and came together to defeat the unbeatable Chinese team. Bae and co-star Ha Ji-won were trained by Hyun Jung-hwa herself, and Bae learned to play left-handed like Li. The actresses started their training four months prior to the start of principal shooting. Because of the entire cast's efforts, there were no body doubles for the tournament shots. Bae had the added disadvantage of playing a left-handed character, because she had to readjust to a new playing style. Even though Li Bun-hui's left-handed style wasn't well-known, Bae wanted to maintain a high level of authenticity. It was no easy task for her, training to the point where she lost toe nails. Unlike co-star Ha's direct training sessions with her real-life counterpart, Bae was unable to contact or meet with Li Bun-hui, having to rely on videos and tutoring instead. Bae in particular presents the unglamorous character type which has brought her praise on the festival circuit. The film premiered in May 3, 2012. Afterwards she made a brief appearance in the science fiction film ''Doomsday Book''.

== International debut in 'Cloud Atlas' ==
In 2012, Bae made her Western debut in the most expensive independent films ever made, the genre-bending epic ''Cloud Atlas'', directed by the famous Matrix-creators The Wachowskis]] and German Tom Tykwer. Lana Wachowski says she first saw Bae in her 2001 film ''Take Care of My Cat''. Who is that girl?' And then I kept watching her films - ''Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance'', ''The Host'' and ''Air Doll''"."And in the way we had the six main parts, we kind of had this emotional feeling that the one from Seoul should be a Korean. And then I suggested Doona." Like the rest of the cast, Bae played multiple characters; Sonmi-451, Tilda, Mexican woman, Sonmi-341, Sonmi-prostitute and Megan's mom. For the film she had to learn English from scratch, but also British accent, American accent and Spanish. Bae has said: "Throughout my career I often felt like it's my luck (to star in the directors' films) that brought me success, not my own ability as an actress. But with my latest movie, I feel like I achieved almost everything on my own (for the first time in my life)." Bae had no American agent at the time, not even a manager in Korea as she was in between managers. She made a demo-tape of her playing Sonmi at home recorded by her brother and mailed it to the Wachowskis, flew to Chicago alone to attend the audition for the role - her first audition of her entire career, but one she was happy to undertake. Bae said: "I really wanted to work with the Wachowskis and I don't like big main roles. If my favourite director gives me a role that is very... - she pauses to find the right word - sparkly? A very brilliant character? I'll do it." Bae became a frequent dictionary user. "I wrote all of the e-mails to the crew in the U.S. on my own. I'd use the Korean-English dictionary to find the right words. My experience with this film made me feel content. I thought, maybe I am actually capable of achieving things. I got to work with some of the greatest people I've ever met." Director Lana Wachowski has said: "She had this quality that I hoped for Sonmi. That Sonmi we felt had to be able to feel innocent in the way you almost see like a deer can project, a feeling of innocence or a quality that was almost trans-human where she's almost so innocent she was not human, like the way a baby would feel, but in an adult. And yet, then she had to evolve into this incredibly strong revolutionary leader. And that is what's so unique about Doona. She has this capacity to in a performance inhabit such a pure emotional vulnerability, where you feel like there's almost nothing between the lens and her emotion. And then yet underneath that openness and sweetness, there is a sort of strength, a toughness, a kind of steel in her bones that you could believe could lead the revolution." Bae has showed strong affection for the role of Sonmi: "As I read the screenplay and the original book translated into Korean and came to know more about the character Sonmi, I got the thought that I can portray Sonmi better than anyone else, even though I wasn't good at speaking English, far worse than I am now. My main character Sonmi, when I first got the script, I just immediately got into her, could relate to her actually. She was so lonely and her life was miserable in the beginning. Then she learned something and she fell in love. She fell in love. Everything was so.. I could relate myself immediately to Sonmi's character in some ways. So for some preparation, I would just empty myself - empty my heart to feel Sonmi's feelings. I couldn't hold back my tears when Sonmi cries. So I just think like Somni, feel as Somni. I don't always feel like this. I don't like expressing a character through a verbal explanation. I prefer to just show how I feel through the character. The audience may feel closer to the character with their hearts when I act. I thought Sonmi is the kind of role where I can express how I relate to her. Actually I don't study the script - I didn't analyze anything. I just emptied myself and felt Sonmi, let her into my heart. So when I first saw Yoona-939 die, it was a big shock. It was like I realized something at that time. Also when I met Chang - it was gradual. I like Sonmi because she has both purity and innocence, and at the same time she's got such a strength. I helplessly like the character so much. I was devotedly attached to Sonmi while living for four months as Sonmi." Even though Bae's English was very limited, almost didn't speak any English at all, she went to Berlin for shooting all on her own without agents, managers or translators. About co-star Jim Sturgess she's said: "He helped me alot. There's a line when I talk to Archivist were I say "It was the first time a pureblood had shown me kindness." Jim was like that on set. He was so kind and considerate. We just laughed a lot, hang around in Berlin with eachother. We just built up some friendship." The directors praised Bae's excellent acting saying that she has a light that illuminates from within. Lana Wachowski: "Doona is an angel. She creates art without artifice; often it feels like there is nothing between the lens and her pure, vulnerable emotion. She is also as lovely and kind as you might imagine her to be." Co-star Tom Hanks praised Bae by saying she has an unspoken power and that she is the soul of the film. Her performance was also unanimously highly praised by the critics. Bae attended the world premiere of Cloud Atlas at Toronto International Film Festival, September 9, 2012, where it recieved a 10-minute standing ovation. About Cloud Atlas Bae has said: "There's no border between countries in the film industry. I've been working in Japanese films too, and I think this is another challenge for me. But it was big fun and a great experience. I would love to do some more, anything - any Hollywood film or French, German, anything." It's been 15 years since Bae broke into South Korean entertainment industry. Bae has said earnestly: "I really love learning and working long hours. I was even jealous of my Cloud Atlas stand-ins because I love being in front of the camera. In social situations, when I'm surrounded by people, I become very shy. But if there's a camera in front of me, I feel free. I am most alive when I'm shooting films." Bae has said she doesn't want to star in too many films in the future, but rather find a balance between her work and life. "I'm sure I'll star in a movie that I can feel proud of, but these days I sometimes fear that life as an actress overshadows ordinary life as Bae Doona the woman. My goal is to keep the balance."