Hye Yun Park, actress, director, writer, is the star and creator of the web series, Hey Yun. The show chronicles a fictionalized version of her life and experiences as a Korean American woman living in New York. She tackles tough topics like hidden racism, classism, fat shaming, and depression with comedic and relatable aplomb.

GnerdeGniche sat down with the 30-something queer artist living in Crown Heights to talk about her creative processes when it comes to making the series and the other ways she needs to express her self artistically.

What was your mission in making the “Hey Yun” web series?

Can I be funny? I never grew up being a goof ball. After college, I met an amazing group of friends that have become my chosen family they would tell me certain things,“Oh you’re really funny,” like when I would tell a story or do a certain thing so I started paying attention to that.

Another mission was to put myself as a lead of a show. In the two or three years of auditioning and trying to get into the acting world nobody was doing that for me. I think it’s me being Asian American, its me being a fat person, the way I present myself but even white actors have the same problem. I think it’s so competitive, it’s so difficult unless you’re part of a mainstream narrative that’s being told. It’s a universal struggle. My mission was okay let’s put someone who looks like me, thinks like me, talks like me as a lead, as the star of a show and no one could object to that it’s my show so I can be the star of my show.

What was your approach making Season One?

My approach to season 1 was a lot of manic passion. I made it super quick It was just this crazy drive of I wanna make it and put it out. My really good friend, Nancy Schwartzman, who’s a documentary filmmaker, came in and said “I’ll help you produce it” and that was just a huge support. She’s been an amazing ally and supporter. The approach was getting so much help from friends like everything from: I’m gonna set up a table reading, I’m gonna cast people, I’m gonna meet with each of the actors beforehand, crew up, I was doing a lot of the pre-production details too. It was just pure joy because of that drive.

Why did you decide to change to a mockumentary format for season two?

Mockumentary was really speaking to me. It also made sense to me that if it was mockumentary format I could shoot it more quick and dirty and a lot of things that can be seen as “lack of production detail” or because of lack of budget I can just mop it up to “oh it’s mockumentary.” It was cost effective. And breaking the fourth wall and interacting with the camera excited me artistically. I got more specific with my voice and what I wanted to tell.

While watching season two you’re never quite sure what’s real and what’s not… what is the most honest part of the show?

Each of them have personal stakes for me. The first one the whole shaman fat shaming me that was basically my family in Korea always concerned with my body and fat shaming me but I plugged it on to a shaman character.

The suicidal mother one, I don’t have a child, ive never given birth. I kind of plugged in my fantasy. I’m such a wuss, I would never be able to go all the way with committing suicide. It’s a dark side of me so I desperately wished for a friend who would do it for me [laughs] that and watching some of my close friends becoming mothers and its so your life completely changes when you’re a mother. Two of them coming together me observing my friends and my struggle with depression.

The sister episode I don’t have a sister in real life, the things I talk about in the episode of feeling like I don’t have my shit together, that’s real.The clown episode, we filmed me actually performing it at a burlesque show, so that was real even the moments right before going on stage I would turn to the camera, “Oh this is a mistake. This is going to go terribly,” that was my honest feeling.

Was the performance piece in “The Clown” episode planned for the show or is was it something that you had worked on previously?

The clown show happened four months before I shot season two. So it was even before I had written all the other episodes. I knew that I wanted to play with mockumentary so I used the opportunity to shoot it. Its me being kind of clever too. Later if I wanted to shoot it I would have to get a venue, get extras to be in the audience. So I had my friend Joanna who’s a filmmaker and cinematographer, help me shoot it. I’m very opportunistic. It’s an impulse that I felt. Somebody told me this too, it’s always something I practice I never sit on my impulse I just act on it, even if it goes to waste later.

Can you elaborate on your performance art and where that comes from?

Clown came out of doing a clown exercise in an acting class I’m in and out of that I’ve been training with my mentor Deborah Campmire for a long time it just came out of that. Since then I would perform here and there. Clowning is my way of accessing my truth. Oh that sounds so hippy dippy but even with very naturalistic script material and I’m hired to act in it. Instead of taking a natural approach my way to really get what that is to me is to clown it and I do that in my life too. I love the stage and after I did the Boodissy show which I created with my partner Stanqi-Sex so this is a variety show that I wanna do every 3 months, we MC’ed it we put it all together we curated it and I did my clown and I realized how much I love being in front of the crowd. I am a filmmaker and I love doing work in front of the camera but there’s nothing like being in front of an audience on stage.

How does it differ from creating a web series in terms of the message you want to convey?

Doing work on stage is an immediate roar. And making a web series the process of film making is very long. Making films is like giving birth so its slower but its longer brewing and you need both. You sometimes want a hearty slow brewed oxtail soup but sometimes you want a spicy bowl of ramen noodles.

What’s the process of “brewing”?

Brewing comes to me because I think a lot of those stories or things that I want to make come from experiences and observations that get collected and I think collecting is different from brewing. Its really taking everything in, in a personal way.

Like yesterday I was waiting for the bus and there was a little bird eating something off the ground on the sidewalk and it was pink, purple and I was curious to what it was so I stepped closer and It was a crushed candy but because I stepped closer the bird flew away and it went all the way across the street and landed on the roof of this diner and I felt so bad I could feel the bird just being like “motherfucker.” It looked like he was having a good time eating it like,”that fucking bitch you had to come see what I was doing and you ruined my treat time.” I don’t know why but that stuck with me all day. And I think a lot of times people, with artistic curiosities, step into places without respect I do that for sure sometimes, and you end up disrupting people’s lives and spaces. I wrote that down, I don’t know where that may or may not come up but things brew.

 

Can you talk about Grown Woman with Toys and how the book came about?

That’s an example of life imitating art. I made this short film called Sumi. I made a choice that my character is like a kid and there’s some magical realism involved in the film so I wanted her to have toys all over her place so I started collecting them one by one. I didn’t want brand new toys, I wanted them to be old and broken. So I slowly started collecting them and after I shot the movie I still had them. So I kept them. When I would leave home to go out to work or

whatever I would grab a couple I feel like grabbing and throughout the day when I would see a scenery that affects me or something that happens I want to reenact it I would set it up on the ground and just take a shot of it. It was literally being playful. Sometimes as an artist you don’t get the opportunity or the means to create consistently as you want to, so for me, it would be painful to wake up and go to sleep without creating anything so even that one little shot would be okay.

Are there other ways you express yourself or anything you haven’t tried yet?

I wouldn’t call myself a stand up comedian but before I made season one and two. I loved going to open mics and now I go pretty seldom but that’s something I feel like I need to do more of. And rapping. In my clown shows I rap in Korean.

What are you working on now? What’s next creatively?

I’m just about to start pre-production on my new web series called BKPI which im creating with this digital production company called Super Deluxe. That’s right around the corner. I’m developing two new shows that I want to write in 30 minute format, one is a rom-com and one is the half hour version of Hey Yun. I’m excited to keep on writing new stories.

 

This interview has been condensed and edited.