(Continuing from interview ②) Actor Park Hee-soon revealed the close chemistry of the No Other Choice team.
Park Hee-soon conducted an interview on the afternoon of the 25th at a cafe in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul. At that event, he met with domestic reporters and talked about the film No Other Choice (director Park Chan-wook), which opened on the 24th.
No Other Choice is a film about Mansu (Lee Byung-hun), an office worker whose life had been so satisfying that he felt he had "completed everything," who is suddenly fired and prepares his own war toward reemployment to protect his wife and two children and to keep the house he worked hard to acquire. It is Park Chan-wook's new work and, with meetings with top actors such as Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin, is considered the most anticipated film of the second half of the year.
Meanwhile, Park Hee-soon gave a passionate performance as Choi Seon-chul, Mansu's rival for reemployment. In addition, No Other Choice features many reliable actors such as Lee Sung-min, Yim Hye-ran, and Cha Seung-won.
Park Hee-soon praised Son Ye-jin first of all for her portrayal of Mansu's wife, Miri. He said, "I have watched Son Ye-jin since she was young. She is beautiful in real life and acts well. But this time she completely let go, and yet she took exactly the parts she needed to take. It was the most condensed kind of acting, you could say. Even without showing or projecting, just by being the actor, it was one of the performances that could be fully convincing and one of my favorites," he marveled.
He added, "I met Lee Sung-min hyung when I was doing theater. We even appeared together. He was an actor I hadn't seen for more than 20 years after that. During that time his acting had become so excellent that I couldn't even compare it to back then. I was very curious how he would play Beommoh (played by Lee Sung-min) in this work, and just his hairstyle made me laugh. I was disarmed from the start. I think his acting was outstanding. In the 'dragonfly chili' scene he was my laugh bell," he laughed.
He also said of Yim Hye-ran, who plays Beommoh's wife Ara, "She is one of my favorite actors recently. She is the hottest and most on-trend right now, but I was curious about this role from the moment I first received the script. The role itself was the most charming in the script, so that was the question. When I heard Yim Hye-ran would do it, I thought it was over. As expected, it was over. There was no need to say more."
Above all, Park Hee-soon said of Cha Seung-won, who plays another of Mansu's rivals, Goshi-jo, "He does very unique acting and a lot of comedy, but in this performance he did nothing and that was the best. It had been a while since I saw someone do nothing and just give such honest acting, and it was so good," he said, impressed.
Buoyed by the ensemble, No Other Choice received an official invitation to the competition section at the Venice Film Festival. Even Lee Min-jung, the wife of Lee Byung-hun, visited Venice with them. The team itself became even closer.
Park Hee-soon said, "There is a group chat with everyone who went to Venice. It's not just the director and actors; it includes everyone who stayed at the hotel together. At one point a hotel had a power outage and the chat was created for notifications, and that room became like a comedy club. It turned into a fun situation full of humor and funny comments, and everyone was fiercely competitive about jokes. Son Ye-jin, Sung-min hyung, and Yim Hye-ran too. The funniest is MJ (Lee Min-jung). She mainly teases Lee Byung-hun and it's so funny," he laughed.
(Continued in interview ④.)
[Photo] Provided by CJ ENM.
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