Actor Hong Kyung said why he made director Byun Sung-hyun tired and learned three languages for the Netflix film "Good News."
Netflix held a production briefing for the new film "Good News" (director Byun Sung-hyun) on the morning of the 14th at the JW Marriott Dongdaemun in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul. Director Byun Sung-hyun, who directed the work, and lead actors Ryu Seung-beom, Hong Kyung, Sul KyungGu attended, and under the moderation of broadcaster Park Kyung-rim, they discussed the film and their recent activities.
"Good News" is a film set in the 1970s about a suspicious operation by people who gathered to do whatever it took to land a hijacked plane. It was officially invited to the 50th Toronto International Film Festival and the 30th Busan International Film Festival, generating strong reactions even before its public release.
Among them, Hong Kyung delivers a passionate performance as the elite ambitious Seo Go-myung. Hong Kyung said, "I was captivated by the script book without question. The main thing is that when I first received and read Seo Go-myung, he felt like a very passionate guy. The drive to move forward, to achieve something, or ambition shows youthful impulsiveness, and I was very taken with that."
He described the character as "a person with great ambition and aspirations. The film shows this to some extent, and even though briefly the family background and inner circumstances come out, that may be the driving force. He's a person with the desire to move forward and accomplish something."
To this end, Hong Kyung speaks three languages in the film. He said, "During the free period I tried to learn as many basic terms and elements that an air traffic controller should know. While English might be familiar, Japanese was new to me, so I took sufficient time to learn it slowly. I tried to memorize hiragana and katakana first. Previously when doing a work involving sign language it was similar — relying only on lines is difficult, but I didn't want to miss the good opportunity to explore various chances, and the production company gave me enough time to work on it, so I was able to make the effort."
Director Byun Sung-hyun said about working with Hong Kyung, "It was very exhausting. He had so many questions. I had to prepare answers to those questions. So even though I wrote the script, I had to study more. I jokingly said it was tiring, but I learned a lot too. Not only with questions, but when he spoke his thoughts and I agreed, the scene design sometimes changed. I laid the initial foundation work, but it would be nice to say we made the finished product together."
Above all, he said, "I wanted Hong Kyung to resemble the young faces of today's generation rather than the 1970s young generation. No matter how hard you try you become listless. I wanted to capture those things," adding, "Also, sometimes the final scene shown at the end of the film is what Hong Kyung and I think of as the young generation of today, and we worked with that in mind."
"Good News" will be released on Netflix on the 17th.
[Photo] OSEN reporter Cho Eun-jung.
[OSEN]