The Korean concept of in-yun suggests nothing is coincidence, no meeting is accidental—two people are drawn to each other by an inextricable fate that tethers them emotionally in this life and others. As Greta Lee’s Nora explains in Past Lives, the A24 Sundance hit film that caused Google searches for in-yun to trend across the U.S., “It’s an in-yun if two strangers even walk past each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush, because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives.”
If you ask Lee, she and Past Lives writer-director Celine Song have in-yun. When they first met, the spark between them and all that seemed possible made them giddy: “We felt like two little girls giggly with ambition about what kind of movie we could make,” Lee says.
Loosely based on Song’s own experiences, Past Lives is a romantic drama about childhood sweethearts, Nora and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), who are torn apart when Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea, only to be reunited later in life, once via Skype and later IRL. The tender story, powerful in its softness, follows Nora as she vacillates between the life she chose with her husband in New York and the one she could have had with Hae Sung, in a way that feels heartbreakingly relatable, no matter your background. “The script just destroyed me on so many levels,” Lee admits. “I immediately thought, I have to do this.”
It’s been a long journey to success for Lee, who turned 40 this year. Like many Asian and Asian American actresses, she has auditioned for leading roles throughout her career, only to be passed over in favor of white colleagues and offered supporting roles instead, often as a zany side character. “I was slowly accepting that I wasn’t going to have the career that I desperately wanted,” Lee explains. “It’s like being part of an orchestra—you’re given an instrument like everyone else, and you have to spend a lot of time watching everyone play, but you have to keep your instrument inside of its case. Every once in a while, you’re able to take it out and play a few notes.”
Landing the starring role in Past Lives has ushered in a new era for her professionally; next, she’ll take on a lead part again—this time in a big-budget Disney sci-fi franchise, Tron: Ares. And after playing Nora flawlessly and garnering Oscar buzz? She says she can never return to the days of being cast as the supporting act: “I’m totally fucked,” Lee says. “I’m not willing to accept my previous reality.”
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On the fight for fair pay
“I feel strongly about opening up the conversation around the wage gap. It makes a difference how much you get paid, especially if you’re a woman of color, when it’s already so hard because the jobs are so limited. There’s this feeling that if you don’t say yes to certain terms, there are a million people behind you who will take them. I’ve started to ask everyone how much they make, because I really have been interested in this idea of wage transparency. You may be horrified to know what the answers are.”
On the importance of female mentors
“I have so much gratitude and love for Lena Dunham. She was one of the first people who saw me as a person first and wrote for me on Girls, as opposed to writing for an Asian woman or an Asian American woman. I met Amy Schumer in an elevator on the way to an audition for a Noah Baumbach movie, and she later offered me to come on her show, Inside Amy Schumer. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler gave me the freedom to improvise. It felt like a real sisterhood of people looking out for you and helping you, because especially for someone like me, you really need that. I don’t have an inside perspective on the industry and how things work. I’m coming in blind. It really has a big impact.”
On the lack of roles for women of color
“Playing Nora in Past Lives is the honor of a lifetime for me. Before that, I had accepted that either it wasn’t going to come at all, or if it was going to come, it was going to come at the end of my career, if I was lucky. As an actor, there’s always the question, especially for someone like me: Will I ever get more opportunities? You don’t want to address the extreme discrepancy of opportunities for people of color. It would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that I have this burning rage on behalf of myself and other actresses like me who do not want to wait for roles like this. I do not want other people—other women, other women of color, other Asian American actresses—to have to sit there and wait. There has to be a better way.”
On filming Past Lives in NYC
“I cannot stress just how emotional it was to shoot on 35-millimeter film for the first time, and to be number one on the call sheet in the center of a movie by A24 on the streets where I got my start. There were days when I was trying to focus on the job while managing my feelings of standing on the literal spot where 15 years ago I was a host for Momofuku Ssäm Bar, in a state of longing for a certain kind of career. Those streets were full of memories of first apartments—horrible, horrible apartments. I mean, so fun, but no one needs to live with five other people with their spouses, and each with their own dogs. But also, what a time!”
On her dream collaborations
“I would love to work with Greta Gerwig, although it would be confusing for everyone. I’m willing to be called Amanda—something totally different. I also want to work with everyone from Jennifer Coolidge to Tilda Swinton again. I’ve loved Penélope Cruz forever. Margot Robbie has that thing; her commitment to what she does feels like an act of service sometimes. I also would love to pull Maggie Cheung out of retirement and make her work with me. That is on my bucket list.”
On dealing with the haters
“I’m not on the internet. I don’t read the comments; I don’t read reviews. Occasionally people will send me things because they’re excited and they want me to see, but [being offline] is pretty essential to how I maintain and protect a sense of happiness. The industrial complex of hatred is so real. I quit Instagram as an experiment around three or four years ago, just out of curiosity. Like, what will this do if I just stop? Will I miss it? Am I going to miss crucial information? Am I going to become culturally malformed? And no, it has been supremely liberating, and the stuff that is important enough will find you.”
On her biggest goal for her career
“I want to work until I’m 100 years old. I’m going to be really good about my vitamins and my probiotics; I’m going to take walks. I want to be around forever. I want to outlive everyone to make up for all that lost time—all those years of sitting and just watching people, incredible people who I love, the people who had access to all the things, all the opportunities that I didn’t. People are going to have to get used to this idea of old lady Greta for a very long time. The work will always be something that’s sacred to me and I’m protective of. I genuinely love my job, and I know how lucky I am to do it. Just because not everything was available to me doesn’t mean that I feel like I’m owed anything—I just want to be equal. I want the same chance as everyone else. That’s what inclusion is.”
Hair by Jenny Cho at A-Frame Agency; makeup by Kara Yoshimoto Bua for Chanel; manicure by Ashlie Johnson at The Wall Group; produced by LOLA Production; photographed on location at the Hollywood Roosevelt in Los Angeles.
A version of this article appears in the December 2023/January 2024 issue of ELLE.
This story is part of ELLE’s 2023 Women in Hollywood portfolio, our annual celebration of the women we loved watching this year. Click the link below for all the cover stories.
