Although she had to give up her dream of becoming a dancer, that experience has since become an important asset in Shin Youn Ha’s acting career.
She believes the years she spent training as a dancer have helped her as an actress.
“I feel that the years I spent training as a dancer have helped me a lot with acting,” she said.
During The Scandal, director Jung Ji Woo also responded positively to the lines and movements Shin Youn Ha developed through her dance background.
“During The Scandal, the director also liked the lines and movements that came from my dance background. I hope I’ll have opportunities to make good use of them in genres such as action in the future,” she said.
Action is not the only genre Shin Youn Ha hopes to explore. She wants to play characters with different emotional qualities, ranging from deep melodramatic roles like those in A Star Is Born to bright and innocent characters like So-Ok in The Scandal.
She hopes to broaden her acting range by taking on characters with different emotional textures.
“I think another appeal of acting is that you can express emotions that you don’t normally have the chance to confront in everyday life,” she said.
Shin Youn Ha has even developed a habit of keeping an acting journal to preserve her emotional experiences.
“Because I tend to organize my emotions well in everyday life, I started keeping an acting journal after I began studying acting. Whenever I go through a strong emotion, I write down how I felt at the time and what my physical condition was in as much detail as possible,” she explained.
She hopes those records will eventually help her when she needs to portray particular emotions in her performances.
