[Herald Interview] Roh Yoon-seo talks about acting in sign language in ‘Hear Me: Our Summer’

In director Jo Sun-ho’s coming-of-age romance flick “Hear Me: Our Summer,” a majority of the three protagonists’ scenes rely less on speech and more on sign language, body language and written text.

For Roh Yoon-seo, being part of the project was an experience that has improved not only her sign language skills but also expanded her acting spectrum.

“At first, there was the pressure to learn a new language, but I started out by learning lines from the scenario in sign language, which was a lot easier and fun,” said Roh in an interview with reporters in Seoul on Oct. 31.

“In sign language, facial expression makes up 70 percent (of the language’s meaning). It’s that important. And looking at a mirror and practicing the language enhanced my overall acting skills in terms of expression,” the 25-year-old actor said.

Because sign language is only readable by looking into the other persons’ eyes, Roh said staring into others’ eyes while acting helped her to better illustrate feelings.

“Standing in front of an actor and looking into his eyes, I could sense even the smallest movement and feeling in the eyes,” she added.

“Hear Me: Our Summer,” a Korean adaptation of the 2009 Taiwanese romance flick “Hear Me,” revolves around 26-year-old Yong-jun (played by Hong Kyung) and Yeo-reum (played by Roh) who he falls for at first sight. Yeo-rum, who is the same age as Yongjun, takes care of her little sister Ga-eul (played by Kim Min-ju), a swimmer with hearing impairments.

As Ga-eul gets one step closer to her Olympic dreams, Yeo-reum discovers unfamiliar emotions toward Yong-jun and feels guilt toward her sister.

Capturing the intersection of romantic youth and coming-of-age drama with a refreshing vitality, the movie is brought to life by Roh’s calm yet emotional performance.

“I didn’t watch the Taiwanese movie and that actually made me focus more on the script. The power of the story was immense and touched my heart. The depth of both the story and the emotional development was impressive and was something that I wanted to try as an actor. The clear and cool feeling of this romantic flick was something that I'd been waiting for,” Roh said.

“Hear Me: Our Summer” has a unique charm as a romance flick, she said.

“The movie is very refreshing and worth watching at a movie theater. Because there are not many spoken lines, the audience can focus on the facial expressions of the actors and hear the soft and pretty sound of hands hitting or overlapping each other. This will definitely be an unusual, new experience for the audience,” Roh said.

“Hear Me: Our Summer” hits local theaters on Wednesday.