By Robbie Shell
Meet eight alumni who took a chance and traded security for the pursuit
of a passion
On the Big Screen:
Rick Yune, W’94
Rick Yune’s career change began to
unfold seven years ago in a building on
5th Avenue and 17th Street in Manhattan.
Yune, who was taking a year
off from Wharton, had an appointment
with an attorney to discuss the
merits of a career in law. An executive
from a modeling agency also at that
address happened to spot Yune on the
elevator. He handed Yune his card and
suggested he drop by.
From there, it’s been fast forward
for Yune. He started modeling for
Versace and Polo Sport, returned to
Wharton for his degree, spent three
years working for a hedge fund while
also taking acting lessons, and earlier
this year landed a lead in Snow Falling
On Cedars, a movie based on the New
York Times best-selling novel. The
movie, which made its debut at the
Toronto International Film Festival in
September, opens this December.
Meanwhile, Yune has been interviewed
by magazines like GQ, Details,
Newsweek, Vogue, Mademoiselle and Premiere.
He is traveling to film festivals
and film awards ceremonies around
the world. And he has been offered
parts in several other movies.
It’s definitely been a career switch,
although Yune, who was brought up
in Tacoma Park, Md., by Korean-American
parents, is not exactly writing off
the business world. For a while he considered
becoming a Wall Street trader,
“but I couldn’t see myself doing the
same thing for the next 15 years, no
matter how much money traders can
make,” he says. “I didn’t want to
become a slave to that lifestyle.” He
has, however, started an ice tea business
in Manhattan (a joint venture
with a bottling company in the
Midwest), completed two private
placements in Internet companies and
is looking to start an Internet multimedia
venture.
Yune’s rapid rise to the top of two
of the toughest fields in the world —
modeling and acting — has given
him a definite perspective on success.
“Modeling helped me pay my bills
while I was at Wharton,” he says. And
although he occasionally would jet off
to Paris or some exotic island for a
photo shoot, “most of modeling is
going to a studio, changing outfits and
standing in front of a camera. It’s just
about selling clothes.”
As for acting, Yune, who lives in
Los Angeles, knows he has been lucky.
“I’m a product,” he says, an Asian
American actor in a market where the
pool of talented Asian Americans is relatively
small. “I was there in the right
place at the right time. It would have
been a lot more difficult for me if I
were Caucasian or African-American.
The competition is much tougher.
“In one respect I’m just an image
on a piece of paper, and if I look at
that image in one way I see that there
is a lot of room to grow and a lot of
opportunity.”
A career as an actor, Yune adds, is
more difficult than, say, being an entrepreneur.
“There, all you are risking is
your money. In entertainment, the risk
is more personal. It’s a business of attrition.
Tomorrow it could all be over.”
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