Son Ye Jin surprised by her 20s look in 'Snow White's Revenge' via CG

Son Ye Jin's face has once again captured the attention of viewers. While curiosity surged over her visuals in the new Netflix series 'Snow White's Revenge', which seemed to defy the passage of time, it was revealed that the secret lay not in the actress's actual face, but in advanced CG technology. For the public who remembers her past face, it was a kind of 'digital time travel' that felt both familiar and strange.

On the 21st, Son Ye Jin appeared on Netflix Korea's official promotional content 'I Came to Promote It' alongside Ji Chang Wook and Nana to share various behind-the-scenes stories of the work. When Yoo Byung Jae asked about the method used to implement the faces of the characters during their teenage and youth years, Son Ye Jin revealed, "The youthful face was made with CG." She explained that they tried to implement a face as close as possible by referencing her appearance in the film 'The Classic', which she starred in during her 20s.

Interestingly, even Son Ye Jin herself found the result unfamiliar. She confessed, "It was amazing because it looked exactly like my real self in my 20s." For an actor, one's past face can be the most familiar yet simultaneously the most distant face. This is because a vast amount of time has accumulated between the current self in the mirror and the past self on the screen. CG called back that lost time to create a 'present past' that does not actually exist.

Ji Chang Wook also explained that de-aging technology was utilized to implement his younger self. In the past, special makeup, lighting, or filming angles were often relied upon to make an actor look younger. Now, with the advancement of artificial intelligence, computer graphics, and digital compositing technology, it has become possible to reproduce faces from time periods that actors cannot actually return to on screen. While an actor's performance is carried out with their current body, an era has opened where they can borrow their past bodies for their faces.

This technology holds meaning beyond just a 'making one look younger effect.' For a star, the face is a brand and a symbol engraved in the public's memory. Especially for someone like Son Ye Jin, who has been active as an actress for a long time and has built both an image of youth and a mature actress, restoring a past face is a task of connecting her filmography with her present within a single screen. For viewers who remember Son Ye Jin in 'The Classic', this CG scene summons not just a technical reproduction, but an entire era from their memories.

An unexpected, human side of Son Ye Jin was also revealed. Finding the five silkworms used as filming props cute, she took them home for her young son, who is very interested in insects and animals. For two whole weeks, she obtained mulberry leaves, kept them in the refrigerator, ground them up, and personally cared for them. She even mentioned placing them in the bathroom to consider the humid environment they needed as the silkworms turned into pupae and then moths.

Son Ye Jin's comment that "the way they nibbled was so cute" reflects a scene of life entirely different from the glamorous daily life of a top star. While she is the protagonist of a historical drama with a production budget of tens of billions of won on screen, off-camera she is an ordinary person tending to the food of small creatures and watching their growth process. The conclusion, where she brought the moths she raised back to the set to show her colleagues before releasing them into nature, also leaves a strange lingering impression. This is because holding on is not the entirety of affection; sometimes, letting go is a way to respect life.

Released on the 18th, 'Snow White's Revenge' is a work depicting a dangerous love gamble between Lady Cho (Son Ye Jin), Cho Won (Ji Chang Wook), and Hui Yeon (Nana) set in the Joseon Dynasty. Through this work, Son Ye Jin summoned her past face using digital technology while simultaneously building a new character as a current actress.

Ultimately, the interesting question Son Ye Jin's face poses in 'Snow White's Revenge' does not stop at simply "how young she looks." It expands into the question of what age and time mean to an actor in an era where digital technology can restore past faces. Faces change, but memories do not, and technology calls those memories back onto the screen. The reason Son Ye Jin said "It was amazing" when facing her 20s face is likely due to that gap in time. And in the midst of this massive era of digital technology, her image of carefully raising five small silkworms and returning them to nature shows that what makes an actor memorable is not just a perfectly restored face, but the warmth of the person existing behind that face.