Olympic shooter Kim Yeji gets role as hitman : NPR

Korean Kim Yeji, who appeared at the Paris Olympics in August, has been cast as a hitman in a “short series”.

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South Korean pistol shooter Kim Yeji, who won a silver medal and gained internet admiration at the Summer Olympics, has landed her first acting role.

She will play a hitman, a fitting role for the athlete whose icy demeanor has already drawn comparisons to action movie heroes like James Bond and John Wick.

Kim’s street-smart style (a black tracksuit and baseball cap, sometimes worn backwards), plus her cyborg-like shooting glasses and nonchalant yet confident stance (she fired with one hand on her hip, just above the stuffed elephant hanging from her waistband) made her a “main character” of the Games.

Many of her online admirers at the time said that Kim reminded them of an action movie star, and some even called on her to become one herself.

“She should be in an action movie,” Elon Musk tweeted. “No acting required!”

It seems their wishes are coming true.

Indian influencer and actress Anushka Sen wrote on Instagram last week that she’s collaborating with Kim on an upcoming “global project,” using hashtags like #Crush and #Moviecrush.

In the accompanying video, Sen is wearing a leather outfit and struggling to wield a gun when Kim, in her signature black hoodie, approaches her and adjusts Sen’s stance with a shy smile. A second clip shows them standing back-to-back, raising a pair of pistols into the camera.

“I am so happy to work with (Kim), the Olympic silver medalist; the most popular Korean shooting athlete in the world,” Sen wrote to her 39 million followers.

A spokesperson for Seoul-based entertainment company Asia Lab confirmed to AFP that Kim will play a hitman in Crushingwhich they described as a “short spin-off series from the global film project ‘Asia.’”

The company said it was excited about “the potential synergy that will arise from the transformation of Kim Ye-ji and Anushka Sen into a great duo.”

NPR has reached out to Asia Lab for more information.

While this is Kim’s first acting role, her popularity on social media has also led to other real-life opportunities in recent weeks.

She signed with a talent agency, whose spokesperson told the Korea Herald in August that “nearly 20 brands want to use her in ads, and more than 10 TV shows are interested in featuring her.”

Kim, 32, has since done a number of photoshoots with fashion brands, including a Louis Vuitton shoot for the magazine W-Koreaa collaboration with MLB Korea to be seen in Fashion and a campaign with Givenchy and the magazine Individualsas seen on her Instagram.

Kim’s agency told the Herald that her sports career remains her top priority.

Next to win silver In the Olympic women’s 10m air pistol event, Kim also won gold — and set a new world record — in the 25m pistol at the International Shooting Sport Federation World (ISSF) Shooting Championships earlier this year. Videos of her winning shot also went viral during her Olympic debut.

In a Interview August with the ISSF, Kim said she appreciates the attention — mainly a meme in which she appears alongside iconic action movie stars, but hopes that more money will go to the sport itself.

“I am very grateful that the general public and the internet appreciate me so much on social media, but I am not an influencer, I am an athlete in shooting sports,” she said through a translator. “I hope that this love and interest is not only for me and that it goes to shooting sports.”