"Soo Ae"

Park Soo-ae (Hangul: 박수애; born July 25, 1980), known simply as Soo Ae, is a South Korean actress.

Soo Ae nearly became a member of a pop idol group. Fresh out of high school, a record agent approached the young stunner on the street in the trendy Apgujeong area. She spent six months in grueling practice, but in the end had no album to put out. She reminisced in an interview, "I didn't sing well, but the six months I spent with the team was so fun. I was lucky to get into acting."

She made her small screen debut in 2002 in a one-act drama on MBC, going on to star in Love Letter, Merry Go Round and April Kiss. Her hit historical drama Emperor of the Sea was exported to other Asian countries, South America and the Middle East, introducing Soo Ae to a wider international audience.

With her classical beauty and pure, graceful image, Soo Ae gained the moniker "queen of tears". But she revamped that image in the 2007 romantic comedy Two Outs in the Ninth Inning opposite Lee Jung-jin, playing a 30-year-old foul-mouthed, disheveled and jaded single woman struggling with life and love. Soo Ae in reality famously has a husky, neutral voice, which helped her tomboyish performance feel so natural. But her voice hasn't always been a plus. "I've been told many times that my voice would be a detriment to my career," she said. "When I first got started, a lot of viewers posted comments online that they changed the channel because of the way I talk. [...] It was odd because I thought of my husky voice as my biggest asset. So I would tell people, 'Keep on listening, you'll get to like it.'"

After a successful big screen debut in A Family, Soo Ae starred opposite Jung Jae-young in the comedy Wedding Campaign, and Lee Byung-hun in the melodrama Once in a Summer.

In 2008 she was cast as the titular Sunny in a film about an average housewife who becomes a "consolatory band" singer in order to search for her husband who has been dispatched to fight alongside American troops in the Vietnam War. Director Lee Jun-ik sought to tell a war story from a female-centric point of view, saying the film grazes upon a broader sense of love and humanitarian concern as it depicts a long voyage of self-discovery. In a scene where she drinks heavily at a U.S. army base, Soo Ae revealed that she drank more than half a bottle of whisky at the director’s criticism that she didn't look real enough. As a result of drinking so much alcohol, she became really drunk, adding reality to the scene where she throws up in the toilet and blacks out. Her commitment to the film paid off, and Soo Ae received multiple Best Actress awards for her performance.

Her 2009 film The Sword with No Name depicts a desperate romance between the last queen of the Joseon Dynasty and her bodyguard. Empress Myeongseong, a forward-thinking advocate of modernity, wields her political influence to further her ideals, but is often at odds with her orthodox father-in-law, regent Daewon-gun. The movie is loosely based on history, with clearly fictional elements. Soo Ae said the role "was something I had always wanted to do from the moment I started my acting career. When I got the screenplay, I said yes without a moment's hesitation.  Playing Empress Myeongseong was not easy, because in addition to the mother of the nation, I had to show her womanly and human side, the joy and anguish she felt at being in love." Having to wear heavy wigs and layers of Korean traditional costumes in the steamy hot summer made the job even more difficult. The fact that she had to appear in almost every scene was another challenge. Describing herself as "timid" and "too introverted", Soo Ae credits her co-star Jo Seung-woo for making it easier for her to fully absorb herself in the love aspect of her role, such that it felt "like [they] were actually in a relationship during the shoot."

Frustrated by usually receiving melodrama scripts and wanting to take on roles in different genres, Soo Ae next starred in the 2010 suspense thriller Midnight FM. She said she decided to challenge herself by choosing the role of a strong female character fighting against a villain. She talked about the heightened fear she felt in a confined studio as her radio DJ character receives threatening phone calls from a kidnapper (played by Yoo Ji-tae), as well as the physical difficulty of filming chase and fight scenes in high heels. She tied with Yoon Jeong-hee (Poetry) for Best Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards.

In her return to television, Soo Ae played a cold-blooded double agent in Athena: Goddess of War, undergoing martial arts training to perform her intense action scenes in the spy series.

Then in the miniseries A Thousand Days' Promise by famed drama writer Kim Soo-hyun, Soo Ae impressed critics and audiences with her unsentimental portrayal of a woman who is slowly losing her memory due to Alzheimer's disease.

She next played a woman born into poverty who will let nothing stand in her way as she tries to become the First Lady of Korea in Yawang (lit. "King of Ambition"), from the same manhwa artist as Daemul.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role
2004	A Family	Lee Jeong-eun
2005	Wedding Campaign	La-la
2006	Once in a Summer	Seo Jung-in
2008	Sunny	Soon-yi / Sunny
2009	The Sword with No Name	Empress Myeongseong
2010	Midnight FM	Ko Suh-young
2013	Flu	Cha In-hye

Television

Year	Title	Role	Network
1999	School 2	guest appearance	KBS
2002	Best Theater: One Sided Love		MBC
	The Maengs' Golden Era	Huh Joo-yeon	MBC
2003	Love Letter	Jo Eun-ha	MBC
	Merry Go Round	Seong Jin-kyo	MBC
2004	April Kiss	Song Chae-won	KBS
	Emperor of the Sea	Lady Jung-hwa	KBS
2007	Two Outs in the Ninth Inning	Hong Nan-hee	MBC
2010	Athena: Goddess of War	Yoon Hye-in	SBS
2011	A Thousand Days' Promise	Lee Seo-yeon	SBS
2012	Love For Everyone: The Plan	Herself	MBC Every 1
2013	Yawang	Joo Da-hae	SBS

Awards

Year	Award	Category	Film / TV
2003	MBC Drama Awards	Best New Actress	Love Letter, Merry Go Round
2004	Blue Dragon Film Awards	Best New Actress	A Family
	Korean Film Awards	Best New Actress	A Family
	Director's Cut Awards	Best New Actress	A Family
2005	Max Movie Awards	Best Actress	A Family
	Baeksang Arts Awards	Best New Actress	A Family
	KBS Drama Awards	Best Couple Award with Song Il-gook	Emperor of the Sea
		Excellence Award, Actress
2007	Korea TV Advertising Festival	Best Couple Award with Jang Dong-gun	Maxim CF
2008	Premiere Rising Star Awards	Rising Star Award	Sunny
	Buil Film Awards	Best Actress	Sunny
	Korean Association of Film Critics Awards	Best Actress	Sunny
	Arts Council Korea	Artist of the Year, Film category	Sunny
	Golden Cinematography Awards	Popularity Award	Sunny
2009	Grand Bell Awards	Best Actress	Sunny
	Korean Culture and Entertainment Awards	Best Actress, Film category	Sunny
2010	Savings Day	Prime Minister's citation
	Blue Dragon Film Awards	Best Actress	Midnight FM
	University Film Festival of Korea	Best Actress	Midnight FM
2011	Korea Best Dresser Swan Awards	Best Dressed, Movie actress category
	Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival	Actor's Award
	SBS Drama Awards	Top 10 Stars	A Thousand Days' Promise
		Top Excellence Award, Actress in a Special Production

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org