Youn Yuh-Jung Put Brad Pitt to Task After Accepting Her Oscar

“He said my performance was very respectable and whatnot, but I’m old. I don’t fall for those words,” “Minari” star says

Yuh-Jung Youn Brad Pitt 2021 Oscars
Getty

Youn Yuh-Jung had a viral moment as she won her Oscar for “Minari” when she turned to presenter Brad Pitt — who also happens to be a producer on the film — and said, “Where were you during filming?”

While many viewers interpreted that as a flirtatious overture, it wasn’t. In an interview post-Oscars, the Korean actress Youn revealed what she told Pitt once she got offstage. And if you’ve seen her character in “Minari,” you know she didn’t mince words.

“I told him to provide more money to the movie,” she told NBC News on Wednesday. (Pitt’s production Plan B was one of the producers of the film.) “I also told him to come to Korea…He promised that he will. But I don’t really believe the words of Americans. Their vocabulary is so fancy. He said my performance was very respectable and whatnot, but I’m old. I don’t fall for those words.”

NBC News in its piece said Youn, 73, has been dubbed by some as their “K-Grandma,” and now that she’s an Oscar-winner, one wonders if she’ll get the chance to star in more Hollywood films. But if she does take another American movie, it’ll be for a very specific reason.

“When some project comes from America, people in Korea think I admire Hollywood,” Youn said. “No, I don’t admire Hollywood. The reason I keep coming is because if I come to the States and work, maybe I’m able to see my son one more time. That’s from the bottom of my heart.”

Youn won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari,” portraying a Korean grandmother who comes to live with her family in Oklahoma and begins showing signs of dementia after a stroke. She also won BAFTA and SAG Awards for the role.

Read more from Youn’s interview here.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.