Director of 'Lisa Forever' Su Kim Reveals Secrets Behind Lisa, From YG Blocking BLACKPINK Music to Countless Tequila Shots

Early in 'Lisa Forever,' a documentary chronicling a year in the life of BLACKPINK's Lisa as she begins her solo career, the K-pop star sees a list of things banned by her label YG. They are banned from drinking alcohol, dating, having a driver's license, […]

Early on in "Always LaLisa," a documentary chronicling a year in the life of Blackpink's Lisa as she embarks on a solo career, the K-pop star sees a list of things banned by their label YG. They are not allowed to drink, they are not allowed to meet, they are not allowed to have a driver's license, they are not allowed to go out and see their friends, and their every move is tracked.

Soo Kim's film, which hit theaters on October 12, is unique in that it not only follows the Thai superstar as she breaks away from her popular girl group to form a management company. Released his first solo album "Alter Ego". Sing a band theme at the Oscars. He made his debut in "White Lotus". And to play Coachella, but also when he's finally freed from those strict label constraints to do as he pleases. 'Synthetic' review in popular variety-related stories: Luca Guadagnino makes a real-life sequel to 'The Social Network' - a tech-based docudrama starring Andrew Garfield and Yura Borisov in Godzilla Minus Zero Review: Godzilla and King Even Ghidorah. "Godzilla Minus One"

"I was a little scared at first because I didn't know how to start," Lisa told Variety. "No one was telling me what to do and I was the one who had to choose the next path. At first it was like, 'What do I do? What should I do?!" I tried it step by step and little by little. I gained a lot of confidence and learned a lot myself."

While you may be familiar with parts of Lisa's story, such as beating out 4,000 others at the age of 13 to become YG's first K-pop trainee and Blackpink's first trainee as a rapper and dancer in 2016, "Always Lalisa" provides an intimate interview with her family to get to know her friends. and "White Lotus" creator Mike White, and even addresses the infamous leaked Blackpink training videos where the members used the N-word while rapping (and how the leaker made a series of threats against Lisa's life).

We didn't see any sightings of Frédéric Arnaud, the billionaire son who was rumored to be dating Lisa at the time of filming, and Kim, who also helmed Apple's TV series "K-Pop Idols" and is working on a documentary about Olympian Khloe Kim, explained why Lisa isn't the most honest.

am i I hope I'm not a K-pop director because I think there are a lot of interesting K-pop stories that can be wonderfully told by other people. I wasn't a huge fan of K-Pop, but I knew and appreciated it enough, and Apple contacted me to do the K-Pop Idols series. They knew I didn't know much about K-pop, but they knew I was Korean-American, very familiar with Korean culture, and I had already talked to them about making my latest movie, The Last Women of the Sea. The production company they were working with sent me some development footage and it was a very fascinating and esoteric world where there are rules and you have to do things a certain way.

Good question. I had complete and total freedom in making "Always Lalisa" from Sony Music Vision, who are my creative partners and the owner of this project. The reason we were able to be so honest and intimate and vulnerable with Lisa in this movie is because she was away from K-pop for a year, so those rules that she had to follow didn't apply this year. This is how I was able to have such unlimited access. Lisa also realized that this year of freedom meant she could express herself a little more openly and honestly, so that was a gift for both of us. We didn't work with YG at all in this movie. I will say that we tried very, very hard to license some of Lisa's previous training videos or music videos or Blackpink songs and unfortunately we were not allowed. That was the extent of our interaction with YG.

Every subject is different. For me, I've found that trust really comes over time. I'm not one to try to pull someone into a dinner meeting and challenge them hard on how the film works. I feel consistency and honesty is the best approach. I have good intentions and I think if people get to know me, they feel that way. When we first started filming, Lisa was guarded and didn't know how much to trust us, but over time she learned that we were on her side, not against her. And we never talked about the movie. He never gave me any creative direction or ideas and I love that. We naturally developed a friendship and trust over time.

Yeah I like that you saw that because that's how I feel. If you start at the beginning of the movie and look at it as a whole, you feel like the walls are coming down more and more because it was a process of him learning to trust us more. I wouldn't say he was too media trained, but he was more comfortable with freedom. He was just coming out of Blackpink, he was going solo this year and doing what he was allowed to do. During the solo recording process, he didn't even know if he could talk directly to the producers, so he has these behaviors to overcome himself and expand beyond that.

What was interesting to me when I was first approached about this project was that he had a break this year where YG had no say in what he was doing, so it seemed like he was coming of age late - a year where he was figuring out what was important to him and when no one was telling him what to do or where to go. What I find about Lisa is that she has this real purity of spirit and inherent innocence about her that isn't fake—it's really her—and that's why she seems like a real young person. He really wanted to do his job, well, protect Blackpink and make their dreams come true, so giving him this new freedom is kind of like a young colt taking his first steps and realizing, "Can I run?" It was very beautiful to be behind the camera and see her blossom.

At first, we broke all the K-pop rules—you can't date, you can't drive, you can't drink—and I don't know if people realize that, but then we show him doing all of these things throughout the movie.

Maybe a few were done last night. But he's just a happy, fun person and he was allowed to do that. We're all given the time in late adolescence and early adulthood to have fun, make mistakes, and learn where our comfort zone is, and he never had that freedom, so we see him doing that in the movie. You look at such a successful, accomplished, talented 28-year-old woman who's so poised and incredible at what she does, so you think she's never been given that time of freedom or figuring out her identity... I'm just glad she had that opportunity.

I will say this: we were with her a lot and I never had a boyfriend. I don't know anything about his dating life, but I think he's smart enough to do that outside of our shoot. You see in the movie why she has to hide her relationships - because she gets an incredible amount of hate - I wasn't really into it, to be honest. I know it sounds counterintuitive because it can be juicy, but for me, it was a film about personal growth.