Apple TV+’s Pachinko Season 2 premiered just under 10 months ago, but many of the most emotional and devastating scenes are still fresh for actress Minha Kim, who portrays anchor character Sunja. Kim’s main character, a woman and mother who connects three generations of her family across the sweeping series based on Min Jin Lee’s book, endures many a hardship.
What might be freshest in the audience’s — especially those who have read the book — mind is the shocking moments in the finale when Sunja’s oldest son Noa (Kang Tae Ju) visits her one last time out of the blue before running away to start a new life for himself. He has just come to realize who his real father is — Koh Hansu (Lee Min-ho) — while he has grown up believing that Isak (Steve Sanghyun Noh) is his biological father. This drives Noa to an extreme reaction, virtually disappearing into thin air where even his actual father — who has all sorts of connections and eyes on people — cannot find him.
“When he left and he disappeared, [it] just [broke] my heart,” Kim told Deadline. “That’s when Sunja finally realized that she’s tired. She cannot do anything. All the hope and lies she has carried on for her whole life [have] disappeared. That’s how big he was to Sunja.”
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In the below interview, Kim unpacked how she bridged the gap between seasons for her central character, her approach to portraying challenging motherhood moments and her hopes for a Season 3 to complete the story of her matriarch.
DEADLINE: Where, for you was Sunja at going into Season 2 of Pachinko, what did you want to focus on while portraying her?
Minha Kim: When I started the second season, the first thing I [wanted] to focus on was that time has passed. Seven years have passed since the first season. So I had to melt those years, and the whole time periods, into the new version of Sunja. I had to imagine how she would have worked, how she would have raised her children, how she would have built the relationship with Kyung-hee (Jung Eun-chae), and how she missed Yangjin (Inji Joeng), and how she dealt with the emotions with Hansu (Lee Min-ho), and all those kinds of things, I had to build he layers of those years.
I remember, I just focused really hard on that, but I thought that it should be very subtle, because she was 30 years old [at the] start of second season. She’s not like, old, old. I thought she would have all those years in her body language and in her eyes. I wrote a diary for Sunja as I prepared for the second season. Honestly, I started it just for fun, but it helped me a lot.
I focused on that, and of course, again, a lot of relationships, because especially for the second season, a lot of relationships got very vivid compared to the first season. So there’s Hansu Isak, Kyung-hee and Yangjin, and especially with the children, I had to specifically separate all these relationships and how I felt differently with the characters. After I sorted out all those kind of things, all the other situations flowed naturally, and all the other staff and actors and actresses helped me in building the layers.
DEADLINE: I love that you did a diary. That’s so cool. In the second episode when Isak comes back, that’s one relationship that really affects her, and then he dies. She’s already been through so much at that point. How did that, I guess, compound all of that, and how does she move out of it and just keep going?
KIM: Whenever I [think back on] the scene where Isak came back and he died, it’s just so heartbreaking, because for seven whole years, Sunja would have a very big hope that Isak would come back and he would be alive. But when he comes back, he was almost a deead person and but even at that moment, she had a hope that she could save him, and she truly believed that Sunja and the children need Isak, but eventually, when it comes out that Isak has no hope. I remember the scene I, Sunja keep touching him, when he was dying. It was because I just tried to deliver my warmth to him so I could make him alive just for a second. It was her hope. She just wanted him to be alive just for a second, because Sunja truly believed that Isak was the one who saved her. But after he died, no matter what, she had to move on, right? She had to save the family.
She kind of naturally felt that if she collapsed, if she fell down, the whole family [would] fall down. So that’s why she went to the backyard and cried in a very secret way. She couldn’t tell the family that she had collapsed. And yet she had to move on, and she had to carry the family, and at the funeral, she had to leave the body because of the war. That was a very devastating moment, but still, she had to move on to leave. The war happened, and Hansu helped the family to move to the rural area, to leave.
All the the situations that she’s facing, no matter what, she has to move on, no matter, what she had to lay more hope. One of the bravest things about her is that she never gave up the hope That’s why I always say that she’s very bright and she’s very smart and very brave. She had to move on in order to protect their children and family. I felt the more shocking it is, Sunja has a very deep mood to stabilize it.
DEADLINE: In episode 3, when the boys are flying the kite with Hansu, there’s this look that flashes across your face, and I know she’s wary of of him being this close to both her boys, but then there’s a look she gives in a split second, and she looks like happy for them to be having that moment. What did you feel was going through her mind in that scene?
KIM: It was very complicated. Whenever I had a scene with Hansu, it was so complicated that I couldn’t explain, I couldn’t decide which vocabulary to use. But I think [those were] the right emotions that I had to get. Because right before the kite scene, I told Hansu that, “No, you cannot be that close to our children. Just stay away from them.” But right after, I see my children laughing that hard, and they’re so joyful. To be honest, just for a second, I imagined, “What if Hansu was my husband? What if Hansu and I had a very good relationship and raised the children?” Would that be this happy?
At that moment, the first thing I imagined ight after I imagined those kind of things, was to [be] guilty. I felt, “Oh, my God, wake up. What am I thinking?” Isak is my husband. I should not think of this, but while I’m looking at my children being so happy, and they like Hansu so much, [it] made me happy too. Flying the kite that kind of open sky, I could feel a bit of freedom while I’m looking at the kite. So a lot of lot of emotions had to come in the very same time, while I was shooting that scene, and it was my last day [on set].
DEADLINE: How did you go about each relationship with Sunja’s sons, especially with them being from different fathers having very different natures?
KIM: So eventually,[we] had four actors playing [her sons]. So from the first episode until four, the young Mozasu and Noa, they really, really felt like my children. They’re so super, super cute. It’s so adorable. I naturally fell in love with that. We shot a lot of scenes in Toronto, so I had a lot of responsibilities to protect them. I [didn’t] want them to be hurt, I [didn’t] want them to be exhausted. Every day I asked them, “Did you have lunch? Did you have dinner? What kind of lunch did you have?” When they were very young, it was, I hate to say this, but easier to raise them, because they were babies. All [Sunja] had to be aware of was not to reveal the secret with Hansu, so that was [her] only goal and only challenge that I had to carry on, which was very, very hard.
After Noa had grown up, the scene where Noa told [his mother] that he no longer wants to [go to] college, that was the hardest scene I shot for the second season, because in real life, as Minha, I’ve never raised kids before, so it was very hard for me to persuade him, like, “Should I be angry at him? or should I be calm, or should I listen to him? Or…”
I couldn’t decide what to do. At that scene, I think it was episode six. Sang-il [Lee] and I had to discuss it a lot. I asked him “How do you raise kids? In this situation what would you do?” He had no answer. There’s no [one] answer for raising kids. Especially with Noa, I had a very big burden in my mind. I’m always, always being very [cautious]. I had a fear with him as well.
Mozasu is so lovely and he has a lot of freedom in himself. [Sunja] had a belief in him that, because he’s from Isak and Sunja, [she] instantly believed that Mozasu had the blood of Isak, so he could be very like, cheerful and in school he has possibilities to work in Pachinko in a very efficient position. [She] worried about him, but at the same time [she] doesn’t worry about him. It was very different with Noa and Mozasu. Mozasu, I just let him do whatever he wants. Noa, I had a very big burden in me.
DEADLINE: What was your approach to the sequence when you go drop Noa off at university? It’s sucha conflicting moment for Sunja because it’s everything she wants but she has to let her first baby go.
KIM: Yes, it was very weird emotions that I had for the very first time in my life. First of all, [Sunja] was very, very proud of him, very proud of him. Have you ever had a feeling of, if you are very happy, you have happy tears? But it’s not just about happiness, not sadness. [Sunja’s] very proud and worried about him, and this is the thing that he’s been working very hard [for], and [she’s] been working very hard [for], and it’s just happened in front of [her] eyes. And now [they] had to be a part. This is the things that [she’s] been waiting for, and he is portraying [her] dream as well. It touched me a lot. I have two siblings in my real life, and my first one had to study abroad when she was 16. So my parents cried a lot in the airport. I think [those] was the same emotions. [Sunja is] thankful to Noa, and at the same time, [she] feels so sorry for him. He’s so grown up and now he’s trying to survive, and he’s trying to move on his [in] life without [Sunja]. All those kind of complicated emotions came in that scene, and when I hugged him, I just couldn’t let him go like with this hug. I wished I could deliver whole my mind and my prayers to him. I was hugging so hard, and I didn’t want to show him my tears. That’s why I just couldn’t look at him, look in his eyes.
DEADLINE: You spoke about the finale, when Noa comes home and then he leaves. You’re so good with the looks. How did you give that split-second look in your eyes and face that Sunja realizes “Oh, no, he knows that Hansu is his father!”? Would you want to see a confrontation between them about this in a third season? Is that possible?
KIM: First of all, at that moment when [she] finally realized that Noah had realized Noah that his father is Hansu — I talked about this scene with Soo [Hugh] a lot. Honestly, Sunja had been always, every moment, every second, she’d been alert about Noa knowing the secret. It was the very first thing that she had to really hide. And she’s always worried about, “What if Noah knows it? What if? What if?”
All of a sudden she realized that, “Oh, my god, shit, this really did happen. All the things I really did not want to be happen, just happened.” So it’s not just that she’s been preparing for the situation, but she’s always been thinking of that. When she ran out of the house and searched for him for a very long time, and she had a conversation with Hansu that “It’s our fault.”
She’s just been going crazy. She loses her rational mind. She’s going insane. It was a very devastating scene, very difficult, very emotional because [she] couldn’t think properly, [Her] brain has just stopped. That’s why [she] need[s] Hansu. But ironically, at that conversation, audiences see that, “Ah, Sunja and Hansu are being parents. It was very weird and a very complicated scene and emotions that I felt.
Because the last episode ended with Noah’s face, I hope, as an audience member as well, we could continue the story with Noa and how Sunja and Hansu could have survived after Noa has disappeared, and how they solve the problem and how it’s connected with the novel. I’m crossing my fingers for continuing the story with a third season.
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