The actor Lee Sung-min of the film No Other Choice shared his impressions of working with director Park Chan-wook for the first time.
Lee Sung-min conducted an interview on the afternoon of the 25th at a cafe in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul. At the event he met with domestic reporters and talked about the film No Other Choice, directed by Park Chan-wook, which opened on the 24th.
No Other Choice is a film about Mansu (Lee Byung-hun), an office worker who had felt his life was so satisfying that he could say "I've achieved everything," who is suddenly laid off and, to protect his wife and two children and to keep the home he had worked hard to acquire, prepares his own war toward reemployment. It is Park Chan-wook's new film and, with meetings of top actors such as Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin, is regarded as one of the most anticipated films of the second half of the year.
Meanwhile, Lee Sung-min appears as Gu Beom-mo, Mansu's rival in the reemployment competition. For him, it was his first time working with director Park Chan-wook. How was working with the master?
Lee Sung-min said, "I felt once again that my imagination is lacking. I thought, so this is what this work is. It wasn't that the feeling was different from the script; when I read the script I thought it would be a conventional narrative structure. I expected it to be summarized as a story about a person who lost his job killing a competitor, the way it was generally introduced. But the director's way of telling the story seemed different. Usually a story pulls you into the protagonist and you become more and more immersed, but this work somehow made me feel most uncomfortable and blurred focus with laughter. I told the director that too. So rather, it made me look at what happened inside with cool-headed clarity. You chuckle and then concentrate, and you keep wondering, 'Why would he do that?' It seems to be the director's unique storytelling approach," he said.
Lee Sung-min, who said that director Park Chan-wook was the biggest factor in his decision to appear in the film, said, "I looked at other things, but that was the priority. He was a director I had wanted to work with someday. I even thought, 'Finally, he's come to me.' 'What should I do?'" and laughed. He added, "The company sent me the script and it had 'Park Chan-wook' written on it. At first I joked, 'Am I Mansu?'" He went on, "I wondered whether I could keep up with his imagination. The director must have had a character in mind, and I wondered if I could demonstrate that kind of creativity as much as his imagination."
He said, "Honestly, I don't know if it's very different from working with other directors. But what I felt during filming was that his direction is like a razor blade. I wondered how to avoid that razor. His delicacy is sharp. If you have prepared something, he generally polishes it. It's not big, but sometimes his directing drills into things I had missed, and I admire that. When you work with many directors, you're glad and grateful to receive that kind of directing because there are parts I miss. From then on you trust the director and believe that even if you make a mistake he can recover it. But you become aware that your weaknesses are exposed in front of the director, so you get scared and become passive. You worry about whether this person will be disappointed in your acting. Almost always, usually, that's the case," he emphasized.
(Continued in interview ②.)
[Photo] Provided by CJ ENM.
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