Youn Yuh-jung made history last night! The 73-year-old actor won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in Minari at Sunday night’s Academy Awards.
The competition included fellow nominees Olivia Colman (The Father), Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), Amanda Seyfried (Mank), and Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy) all hoping to take home an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Youn Yuh-jung Chalked Her Oscar Win Up to ‘Luck’ As She Acknowledged the Other Actors Nominated for the Award.
“We played a different role, so we cannot compete [with] each other,” Youn Yuh-jung said to her fellow nominees. “Tonight I’m here as just … I have just a little bit [of] luck. I think maybe, I’m luckier than you.”
Youn also thanked her “two boys who made me go out and work.” The actor also said, “This is the result because Mommy worked so hard.”
It was a night of many firsts for the actor who, in addition to winning her first Oscar, also got to meet Brad Pitt who presented her with her golden statue. “Finally! Nice to meet you,” she said to Pitt, shortly after joining him on stage.
Youn’s artistry is on full display for viewers of Lee Isaac Chung‘s Minari, a film that follows a Korean-American family as they leave the west coast for Arkansas to live the “American dream” and establish a farm.
Youn, who has been acting in South Korea for over five decades, is the first Korean actor to ever win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. In an interview with Deadline earlier this month, she said that making history as the first South Korean actress to be nominated was “very stressful.”
“I was just very happy being nominated. I never even dreamed about being nominated for an Oscar,” she told the outlet. “People will be very happy for me if I get the win, but it’s very stressful. It’s not like I’m representing the country by going to the Olympics, but I feel like I’m competing for my country. It’s stressful.”
Youn has been celebrated as South Korea’s Meryl Streep but the actress modestly insists that she is only being herself.
“I feel sorry for me and for Meryl Streep — she doesn’t know me!” Youn told Deadline through laughter. “To be honest with you, I don’t like to be compared with somebody. I don’t like to be the competition. I admire her work and everything, but there’s a story for her and there’s a story for me. I’m Korean.”
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The Academy Awards was a night of many firsts last night and we are absolutely thrilled that Youn Yuh-jung made history with her heartwarming performance in Minari.
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