Interview

Shin Min-ah Opens Up About Craving Villain Roles “I Want to Play One, But No Offers Yet”

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Netflix’s “Karma” premiered on April 4. The crime thriller follows the tangled and inescapable fates of six people. Shin Min-ah plays one of the lead roles, portraying a character with deep scars and trauma from the past. In an interview, she shared her thoughts on the project.

Meeting with Herald POP on the afternoon of April 9 at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jongno, Seoul, Shin Min-ah said, “It’s only the first week, but so many people are enjoying it, which makes me happy. Since promotion began, I’ve received great feedback not only globally but also from those around me. Many said it was fun and that they had high expectations. A lot of people said they watched it in one sitting. It hasn’t been long since it was released, but I’ve heard from so many people already it feels great.”

Shin Min-ah Opens Up About Craving Villain Roles

She emphasized that the project held meaning beyond just fulfilling a thirst for new challenges, especially since it was her first OTT project, “It was more about the significance of participating than quenching a thirst. Also, this was my first Netflix original work. Though many of my previous works have aired on Netflix, this is the first time I’m actually part of a project made for the platform. Seeing the Netflix label next to my name feels new.”

On playing a surgeon named Ju-yeon, she said, “The nature of the script required a lot of emotional reactions to what was happening to other characters. Ju-yeon’s trauma from the distant past collides with her present, so she had to internalize things differently from the other characters. I talked a lot with the director about this. I wondered if I should act more energetically like the others, but I believed in respecting and following the director’s vision.”

Shin Min-ah Opens Up About Craving Villain Roles 1

Recalling the first time she read the script, she said, “Ju-yeon doesn’t appear until later, which was refreshing. I didn’t even know her name at first or who the main character was. It made me curious about the rest of the story — I couldn’t predict anything. Even though my character hadn’t appeared yet, I thought, ‘I have to do this.’ It read like a mystery novel — I didn’t blink while reading it. I expected the acting to be difficult, but the message it carried made me want to join.”

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Interestingly, Shin Min-ah thought she’d been cast as a villain when she first received the script, “Even before this, I wanted to try playing a villain. When I got the ‘Karma’ script, I wondered, ‘Am I the bad one here?’ I’d love to play a darker character like some of the ones in the show. I thought Gong Seung-yeon’s Yu-jeong was incredibly compelling. But no one ever offers me villain roles. I think directors have a certain image or type of face in mind when they think of me. But if given the chance, I’d love to try a villain.”

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She added that every scene involving her character was a challenge, “I had to begin with deep emotion from the start, knowing the twists and direction of the story. It wasn’t about a current trauma — it was trauma from long ago. That made it tricky. I worried about how to express that without it feeling fake or superficial. How much pain should Ju-yeon show? I didn’t want it to come off as shallow or just a plot device.”

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