Greta Lee On ‘Past Lives’: Never Felt So Deeply Connected To Anything I'd Read Before

'In-yun', or the Korean term for fate that connects people, often crops up in Sundance breakout movie "Past Lives" and its lead star Greta Lee says she now strongly believes in the idea that "we are all connected to each other".

The film, about two soulmates meeting each other after years, marks the phenomenal debut of playwright Celine Song. It is a story that is inspired by a moment from her own life when Song found herself acting as a translator between her American husband and her Korean childhood sweetheart, as the first-time filmmaker said in earlier interviews.

In "Past Lives", Lee plays Na-young or Nora, a Korean who moves to Canada as a child and later settles in New York to pursue a writing career.

The 40-year-old actor said they wanted to tell a tale of "human experience of living" through a love story.

"'In-yun' has everything to do with my process. I like to think that I had 'in-yun' with the script, actually immediately. I'd never felt so deeply connected to anything I'd read before... Now, 'in-yun' is something that I see everywhere. I can't unsee it. It's just the way that we are all connected to each other," Lee, also known for web series "Russian Doll" and "The Morning Show", told PTI in a virtual interview.

'In-yun', the leitmotif in "Past Lives", comes from Buddhism and the concept of reincarnation, as Nora's character explains in the film. According to her character, every encounter between people is 'in-yun' but "it takes 8,000 layers of 'in-yun'" for two people to be together in a lifetime.

Lee, an American actor born to Korean immigrants, said she felt an instant bond with writer-director Song.

"She and I had this immediate connection based on what our hopes and ambitions for the movie could be, and telling the way we were hoping to tell the story about love," she added.

"Past Lives" takes viewers on a journey of time and fate through two young souls in South Korea, who, torn apart by destiny, find themselves reunited decades later in New York. The movie also features South Korean star Teo Yoo as Nora's childhood sweetheart Hae-sung and American actor John Magaro as her husband Arthur.

The movie was one of the most talked-about titles at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and was later screened at the Berlin Film Festival. Earlier this month, it opened in US cinemas to unanimous praise. PVRINOX Pictures will release the film in India on July 7.

From the beginning, Lee said, they had hoped to tell a specific story with the "direct cultural lens" of Korean-Canadian immigrants but one that was "connecting and linking arms with a much wider group of people".

"It's the bet that we are making, that anyone no matter who you are, can understand what this feeling is like to be a human, and to navigate through the choices that we make in life. That includes who we love and who we let us love back, where we move if we leave home, and how that shapes our lives," the actor said.

It was an honour to play Nora, a character who speaks more through her silences, said Lee, who described feeling "emotionally explicit" in essaying the layered part of a modern woman navigating different identities.

"I like to think of it in terms of music. Sometimes you see in musical theatre, this idea that when there aren't adequate words to express how you feel, a character might burst out into song.

"Similarly, in our film, there are these moments that I think everyone can relate to in their lives when there aren't enough words. We don't have the human capacity to articulate sufficiently what needs to be said. We are using almost a third language, the language of silence, and that was challenging," she added.

Lee said getting an opportunity to be part of a movie like "Past Lives" was the reason she became an actor as she believes in the idea that films can capture something that is "greater and bigger than all of us".

But being an American of Korean origin, she said she never expected to get the chance "to be able to take something like this on".

"It is such a privilege. There's something about the way this story unfolds and the character that it's centered around, that feels very groundbreaking for me, coming up in the industry.

"Over here in the States, we are still grappling with this idea of who can be the centre of a story like this. So often it hasn't been a woman who looks anything like me. So I can't pretend that I don't take that for granted or I'm not fully cognisant of how sacred that is," she added.

Lee said, right from the outset, they were clear that the story will be told without any stereotypes or "palatable explanation" of immigrant experience.

"It's just about love and the human experience told from the point of view of someone who happens to look different from someone you've seen before," she said.