Bae Kang-hee of 'The Glory' Makes Her Film Debut in 'Final Interview'

"I was so fully in that moment that I don't really remember it," Bae Kang-hee said. "But when I'm acting, I think I just go on instinct."

The actress, who played the young Lee Sa-ra in the Netflix series "The Glory," was talking about the audition that landed her first film role. She never studied acting but she got the part after a single audition. During an emotional scene, her eyes turned bloodshot and her whole body flushed red. The director found that interesting.

Her big-screen debut, "Final Interview" (Choejong Myeonjeop), is directed by Kim Jeong-hoon and opened in theaters on Nov. 4. Set during the pandemic, the film follows six job applicants who beat 5,000-to-1 odds to reach the final round of interviews. The day is supposed to be a simple routine. Suddenly, mysterious envelopes turn up with each holding one applicant's secrets, and the room falls into chaos.

Bae plays Cha Ju-won, a perfectionist who keeps a cool head while everything falls apart around her. Bae described Cha differently. She said the character is "not a perfectionist, but someone who had to be perfect."

"Ju-won can look rational and sharp on the outside, but she's actually the most shaken of the six," she said. "She's afraid to show emotion, and she has this defense mechanism because she doesn't want to get hurt. So I tried to make her feel more layered through her eyes and her breathing."

Much of her screen time is spent going head to head with Baek Seung-bin (played by Shin Seung-ho). Bae said the director had seen something in her at the audition. "He said, 'She won't be overpowered by Shin Seung-ho,'" she recalled. She said she adjusted her acting to stand up to Shin's strong energy.

"Shin Seung-ho has such great energy on set, and his stare is overwhelming," she said. "I thought I had to raise my volume and push my presence to match him. We didn't plan it out ahead of time. We just read each other's temperature through our eyes as we acted."

"Final Interview" has six young lead actors around the same age: Bae, Cho Yi-hyun, Kim Jae-won, Kang You-seok, Shin and Kwak Dong-yeon. Landing a lead role in her first film came with pressure, Bae said it also pushed her. "I wanted to live up to what the director expected of me, so I wanted it even more," she said.

She is grateful for the attention "The Glory" brought her. She also hopes people will come to know a wider range of her work.

"'The Glory' is the show that put my face out there, so I'm really thankful for it," she said. "Right now people know me for a strong image, but with this film I want to feel a little more approachable to audiences."

Acting wasn't her first dream. Bae majored in design in college and worked as a model for three years. Then she started to feel empty inside and took two years off. During that break, she watched six movies a day and fell for film. That is what led her to acting.

"Movies felt like the thing that could fill that thirst inside me," she said. "At some point I naturally started thinking it would be nice to see myself on the screen. Now that the dream has come true, I'm nervous and grateful every day."

The road after that wasn't easy. "Since I didn't major in acting, I kept experimenting, trying things, getting scolded a lot and studying on my own," she said.

She still loves it. The best part, she said, is that the same performance can mean something different to each person who watches it. She also enjoys talking and working with people who are very different from one another.

"Acting is still so much fun," she said. "It feels like solving a hard problem."

As for the film, she knows many moviegoers won't recognize her yet.

"I think a lot of people watching will find me unfamiliar," she said. "I'd be happy if they just think, 'Oh, there's a new face,' and enjoy the movie."