Rick Yune Lands Snow Falling on Cedars
By Kimberly Chun

As you might expect from a former Wall Street stock and futures trader, actor Rick Yune has a very business-like approach to his career. So what if he won the coveted Asian American male lead of the highly anticipated movie version of the international bestseller Snow Falling on Cedars? So what if Newsweek named Yune as one of the worthy “New Faces of ’99”?

“I take a very practical approach: This is a business, and I’m a product,” Yune, 28, said matter-of-factly on the phone in his hometown of Washington, D.C.

The market for movies in China and the rest of Asia is opening up and those audiences want to see familiar faces, he remarked. Moreover, the United States is becoming increasingly multicultural: “I don’t think we’re going to be seeing television shows about a group of friends in New York in which they find a soup guy from another country once in a while, but they won’t find anybody else in New York out of 12 million people who don’t look like them.”

This L.A.-based Korean American actor isn’t just a pretty face–although that chiseled countenance was the first Asian one to be featured in both Ralph Lauren and Versace print campaigns. He is currently putting his degree from Wharton School in finance and entrepreneurial management to good use with Helloasia.com, a “Netcentives-meets-Hotmail” company he launched with some friends.

But Yune is cool and collected about his success: He was simply at the right place at the right time, he mused. Clothing manufacturers discovered Asian Americans as a key demographic around the same time Yune was discovered by a modeling agent while searching for a job at a law office.

He eventually returned to trading, but the call of the stage, rather than the catwalk, lured him back before the camera. With a few commercials, the lead in an off-off Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire, and a short stint on the NBC soap Another World as an assistant district attorney behind him, Yune found himself on the other side of the bench as Kazuo Miyamoto, a Japanese American on trial for murder, in Snow Falling on Cedars.

At first, Yune admits there was some apprehension about his lack of acting experience. “Actually I think there was a lot of nervousness about me in the beginning,” he recalled. “They brought an acting coach in, but after the first few days that subsided, and there was a lot of trust put into me. They just let me do what I wanted, really.”

He decided to tap into his own past for the role in Snow Falling on Cedars.

Growing up in a multi-racial neighborhood in Washington, D.C., made Yune aware of prejudice, and he came to identify with outsiders. “I always felt like I was the odd man out. Even in Asian communities, I didn’t even feel like I was Asian, just because of my own interaction with people,” the actor said. “I was always a loner.”

A Tae Kwan Do black belt, Yune qualified for the Olympic training center in 1992. That physical confidence, as well as a military school background, played into the battle scenes of the World War II-era Snow Falling on Cedars, which required training in the mountains near Vancouver with the same military advisor who worked on The Thin Red Line.

“I’ve heard people relate boxing to how they are as an actor -- you’re basically one-on-one with another person and you give it the best you have,” Yune said. “Really, I feel like I’ve had a lot of rich experiences, and so I just used them in any situation that I was asked to be in.

“As a trader I was in a lot of high pressure, high-intensity situations where you just have to react and be in the moment or keep levelheaded and not let your emotions get ahead of you and be able to control yourself. And that definitely helped a lot.”

Looking back on the role, Yune believes he “pulled it off.” As Miyamoto, he keeps it low-key and withdrawn in most of the court scenes. And the difference is striking when he breaks into warm smiles, exchanging news with his wife Hatsue, played by Youki Kudoh of Picture Bride and Mystery Train, or relaxing with his lawyer, portrayed by internationally renowned actor Max von Sydow, who, Yune said, was particularly generous with advice.

But even after the shoot was over, the actor still had to convince a few tough critics: his mother and father. “They’re typical Asian parents!” said Yune, who adds that they initially wanted him to pursue medicine.

“A few months ago, they were telling me to get a real job. Now, after their friends and everyone they know are telling them how great their son is, they feel more validated.”