Hoyeon has chosen an unforgiving setting for her feature debut: a remote Korean village, a mysterious creature and Na Hong-jin behind the camera. Hope puts the Squid Game breakout in a police uniform for the director’s first feature since The Wailing a decade ago. It is a substantial assignment for an actor still early in her screen career, from a filmmaker whose previous credits include The Chaser and The Yellow Sea.
She plays Sung-ae, an officer investigating a creature terrorizing Hope Harbor alongside police chief Bum-seok, played by Hwang Jung-min. Reinforcements are occupied with wildfires; communications have failed. The village’s largely elderly population must depend on the people already there. The international ensemble includes Zo In-sung, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender and Taylor Russell, but the premise keeps the emergency local: something has arrived, and help is unavailable.
In a PEOPLE interview, Hoyeon describes revisiting science fiction to study the moment when recognition fails.
“I rewatched Alien to prepare for this role, to catch the reaction of a person when they meet this unknown creature. I watched Arrival and Alien for that,” she tells the magazine.
That is a precise distinction. An actor can rehearse how to handle a weapon. Registering something that the character has no vocabulary for requires another kind of control: how quickly understanding reaches the face, how long disbelief delays a response. Her explanation suggests that those small intervals interested her as much as the action.
The more unexpected reference is Shōhei Imamura’s Dr. Akagi, his 1998 film set in a Japanese seaside community near the end of the Second World War. Its doctor and his unlikely circle pursue a fight against hepatitis while a much larger catastrophe surrounds them.
Her account of choosing projects is similarly concerned with learning the job. After her Emmy-nominated turn in Squid Game, she wanted to “work with industry veterans,” she tells PEOPLE. Disclaimer, the 2024 series directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Cate Blanchett, gave her one such opportunity. Working with Na, Hwang and Zo continued it. “Being able to work alongside and learn from these legends has been an incredible opportunity,” she says.
For all that formidable company, the Korean premiere brought a more personal test. Hoyeon was inviting family and friends to see her first film, including her grandmother, who had to cover her eyes during the frightening parts.
“Oftentimes she falls asleep in theaters, but this movie, she couldn’t fall asleep,” Hoyeon tells PEOPLE.
