Jeon Jong-seo
Jeon Jong-seo is a South Korean actress. She is best known for playing the role of Hae-mi in the 2018 acclaimed South Korean thriller Burning.
Early life
Jeon Jong-seo was born in Seoul, the only child in the family. Jeon and her family moved to Canada when she was a child. She attended a middle school in Canada, then returned to Korea and graduated from Anyang Arts High School. After high school, she attended Sejong University majoring in film. Later, she was being expelled from university to pursue her acting career more freely.Career
Jeon Jong-seo started her acting career after she joined a management agency and attended her first audition in August 2017, for director Lee Chang-dong's mystery flick Burning. An inexperienced actor without any history in the entertainment industry, Jeon won the competition and landed the lead role at her very first audition, to play alongside recognized actors like Yoo Ah-in and Steven Yeun.Jeon initially did not seek the role of free-spirited Hae-mi in Burning because she thought she had no chance of getting it. The audition took place only three days after she joined her current talent agency. Director Lee Chang-dong said about her audition, "When I saw her, she seemed to have this very childlike sense of innocence, but at the same time, she carried this sense of duality — as if something much bigger was on the other side of that innocence. So I thought she would be great to give Hae-mi the presence that is so central for the film — conveying that inner depth that this character has." And, "Perhaps I was unconsciously drawn to the fact that everything was a 'first time' for her. Also, she has a face that makes people wonder what she's feeling and thinking. I think that made her a good fit for Haemi's character." Lee also said that although the dance scene was in the screenplay, the dance movements were not planned or being rehearsed, but rather Jeon's spontaneous movements.
In May 2018, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where Jeon walked the red carpet. The film received universal acclaim, competing for the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, and became the first Korean film to make it to the final nine-film shortlist of Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards.
For her first role in the film, Jeon received international critical acclaim, including Best New Performer winner at the 2019 Asian Film Critics Association Awards, and being selected for The Hollywood Reporter Critics' "15 International Breakout Talents of 2018" feature.
Pierce Conran of Screen Anarchy wrote, "Plucked from auditions, first-timer Jeon Jong-seo achieves something almost unthinkable for a rookie, as she embodies a character who is caught between her dreams and reality, her yearning for freedom and role in society, and the powerful desires of those around her and her own. She is magnetic every time she appears on screen, at once playful and aching with a longing for something that she may never understand." John Powers of Vogue wrote, "n a marvelous screen debut, she gives a radiant turn, blooming so brightly—especially in a stoned twilight dance to Miles Davis—that she often outshines her male costars. Whenever she's not on-screen, the film instantly grows darker, unhappier." Justin Chang of Los Angeles Times wrote, "Jeon, making a remarkable screen debut, brings this young woman to beautiful, soulful and defiant life."
In 2020, Jeon will star in her second film, Call. She plays Young-seok, who believes that the telephone connected to the future is the only hope to save herself from making dangerous choices.
Jeon next will make her English-language film debut alongside Kate Hudson and Craig Robinson in Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, a fantasy-adventure film by Iranian-American writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour, as the lead character Lunatic.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes | Ref. |
| 2018 | Burning | Shin Hae-mi | Lee Chang-dong | Debut role | |
| 2020 | Call | Young-seok | Lee Chung-hyun | Post-production | |
| TBA | Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon | Lunatic | Ana Lily Amirpour | Post-production |