No pressure: Bong Joon Ho is unfazed by his historic Oscar success

Los Angeles: South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho, who won the Academy Award for his critically acclaimed film ‘Parasite’, has insisted that the Oscar success hasn’t added more “pressure” on his work.

The 55-year-old filmmaker’s movie ‘Parasite’ became the first non-English language movie to win Best Picture at the 2020 Academy Awards, and also scooped Best Director, International Film, and Original Screenplay, reports ‘Female First UK’.

He told ‘The Guardian’, “It changes nothing”. However, he then admitted his success likely helped raise the budget for ‘Mickey 17’,which reportedly cost 10 times as much to make, and helped secure an international cast, but insisted he didn’t feel more pressure.

Asked if the pressure was on as a result, he said, “The biggest thing (during production) was, as I’m getting older, I feel a bit weaker, and my stamina is not as strong, so I have to fight against my ageing body and mind. The middle-aged film-maker”.

As per ‘Female First UK’, ‘Mickey 17’ stars Robert Pattinson as Mickey Barnes, who signs up to work a dangerous job on a space-colonising mission and is repeatedly cloned whenever he dies. And the director is “quite proud” of his choice of the ‘Lighthouse’ actor to lead the movie.

He said, “He was truly the nucleus of this story. I can’t even imagine this film without Rob. I’m also quite proud of myself for thinking of him for this role.” Naomi Ackie also stars as Nasha, and the ‘Snowpiercer’ director thinks she was an equally perfect choice. He said: “Without Nasha’s strength, this film would be so much more difficult to watch … And Naomi was the perfect actor for that. There’s a sense of purity in her eyes”.

The director was keen to harness people’s fears about AI and other technology in the movie, but also to provide reassurance. He said, “We all know that things are just getting worse and worse. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it. We keep seeing incredibly advanced technology come out, AI and everything, but so much fear and anxiety surrounds that too. But at the same time, I wanted to show that amid such anxiety, fear and pessimism, people like Mickey – just, y’know, everyday people – somehow get through”.

“That’s a piece of optimism amid the suffering that I wanted to ultimately deliver”, he added.

–IANS