Actors Moon Choi and Son Sukku have been living with their latest film, Bedford Park, for years, and it is set to make its world premiere at Sundance on Saturday.
Choi, who serves as executive producer on the film, says she auditioned for the part in 2019. The actress recalls being so engrossed in the script that she skipped her usual script-reading ritual — printing a hard copy and taking the time to sit and read — and ended up just scrolling through her phone. “I really just fell in love and I just finished it on the spot,” she tells The Hollywood Reporter on Zoom from Park City. She’s sitting next to her co-star, just days before the film’s world premiere.
Written and directed by Stephanie Ahn, Bedford Park tackles topics like sacrifice and one’s cultural identity. “Audrey (Choi) struggles between loyalty to her Korean immigrant family and her own American identity, as a child raised in New Jersey,” the film’s official logline reads. “When she meets Eli (Son), an ex-wrestler battling his own fractured past, they journey through an unexpected relationship and create a bond navigating self preservation, cultural pressures and chosen love.”
Choi found plenty she could relate to there. “I’m not an immigrant, but I have moved around a lot as a child from Japan to the U.S. to Korea, so I did resonate with this feeling of do I belong here and who am I? Am I a Korean or am I an American?” she says. “I could understand that and [the] struggle between the parents, who have very traditional Korean values, which I could of course resonate with because I’m a Korean.”
The most intriguing part of the film for Choi was the love story, however. She says it felt like nothing she’d seen. “This connection between Audrey and Eli was so special and the love story that unfolded as the story progressed — It was something that I never saw [before] from a Korean movie or an American movie with Korean actors,” Choi says.
With the bond of Audrey and Eli being so central to the story, finding the perfect Eli was imperative. Son, who has worked with Choi several times in the past, says the film struggled to find the right male actor, noting that the part was originally written for a white actor.
“Somehow, it was difficult for them to find. Then Moon — we go way back, we’ve [been] good friends for a long time. At the time we were doing a play in Korea and somewhere in between rehearsals, she mentioned this movie that she’s trying to shoot in New Jersey,” Son recalls.
“[Choi] was like, ‘If this could become an Asian character, you could fit perfectly for that role. I [said], ‘Why don’t you suggest [this] Stephanie to see if she’s down with it?’” he continues. Son says that about a month after Ahn gave it a “good, deep” thought, the director was onboard.
“I thought that if a character was written originally for or a white male actor, then if it’s to be transformed into an Asian character, there could be something interesting happening in the transition,” he says.
Son shares that Choi herself was what drew him to the project and resonated with him more than anything. “I don’t really enjoy having to act in English because it’s not my mother tongue. I don’t feel comfortable with it enough to act in it,” he admits. “But if I’m going to have to do it at some point, I might as well do it with a good friend of mine who I can feel comfortable to make mistakes [with].”
Bedford Park was shot in New Jersey, where Choi lived before attending university in Korea. Son says he and Choi, who both mainly work in the Korean film and television industry, spent a month prior to shooting in New Jersey so they could get used to things. They spent years, however, on regular Zoom meetings with Ahn to rehearse and talk about scenes. They would prove difficult for some, one has to imagine, but the actors’ friendship with one another certainly helped ground the film’s central relationship.
“This is probably our fifth collaboration, and we know we don’t have to talk about it on set because we kind of get it from the first rehearsal or just even reading,” Choi says.
“There’s this comfort zone of having mutual trust, but it’s also very fascinating to see what he brings to the set,” she continues. “It’s always really exciting to find your friend, your partner, to go beyond that barrier that I knew that I thought I knew about him.”
Son later cuts in to lightheartedly correct that they’ve actually worked on fewer than five projects together. This leads the pair to charmingly count on fingers the times they’ve worked together. Choi was correct — Bedford Park is their fifth film together.
As the film premieres at Sundance on Saturday, Moon says she can’t even begin to imagine what the audience will feel when they see the project. “This is the longest project that I think I’ve carried. It’s interesting because I feel like Audrey grew [alongside] me, actually,” she says.
“Sometimes, in the past, I think I had a certain picture or reactions that I expected from the audience, but this is so new to us. It’s our first film in the U.S, it’s our first film festival in the U.S., and I can’t picture how people will react to certain scenes,” Choi continues. “I can’t [predict what the] American audience’s reaction or international audience’s reaction [will be], so it’s something that I’m really looking forward to.”
Adds Choi, “I can expect that people will follow as a love story, but then in a more specific sense, about this being Korean-American protagonists or their ending, especially. I really look forward to hearing the reactions. Maybe it won’t just be positive, but still, I am so curious to know. I’m so open to hear the reactions.”
Bedford Park is produced by Gary Foster, Chris S. Lee, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Theresa Kang and Son. The film is executive produced by Choi, Yang Jinmo, Caroline Garity, Amy Lee, Bryan Hwang, Alex Peace-Power, Clara Wu Tsai, Agnes Chu, Crystine Zhang, Charlie Zhong, Charley Hine, Kyuho Lee, Annie Yang, Julia Xu, Chee Ching, Nina Fialkow, Hyun Park, Lenox Huh, Oliver Hsu, Ali Jazayeri, Viviana Zarragoitia, Stefan Klin, Sungwon Jee and Yoo-Hyue Julia Kim.