Actor Kim Moo-jun revealed why he chose to enlist in the military at the age of 20.
On the afternoon of the 23rd, actor Kim Moo-jun met with OSEN at a cafe in Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, for a final interview about the SBS Wednesday-Thursday drama Dynamite Kiss.
Kim Moo-jun played Kim Sun-woo, the close friend of Da-rim (Ahn Eun-jin) and a single dad photographer. Raising his 6-year-old son alone while running a baby studio, Kim Sun-woo is kind and delicate and somehow ends up acting as Da-rim's pretend husband.
Born in 1998, Kim Moo-jun will be 29 by Korean age next year. While actors of his cohort are at the age when many enlist, Kim Moo-jun was discharged in 2020 and is a veteran. The absence of a gap is a significant merit for him as an actor.
He said honestly, "At first I went to the military not for any particular reason, but because I failed all my college entrance exams in my senior year of high school and enlisted to escape. I graduated high school in February, but I enlisted in May. I literally failed everything and couldn't go to college, so I went to the military, and I used leave to take entrance exams while in the military. I was lucky and did well, so I enrolled right after discharge."
He added, "I never weighed or considered the (veteran) merit. After discharge I entered the entertainment industry, and I thought that since I had already done the military, if I worked hard there would be no gap. Then I thought I should work even harder."
Kim Moo-jun said, "If you ask whether I have goals going forward, the projects I've done haven't had overlapping characters. They were slightly different characters. I heard reactions like, 'Was this actor that actor?' At times during "Algotitjiman" I was called ugly, and in the future I hope to be an actor who shows such different sides that people say, 'Was this actor that actor?'"
Is there a reason Kim Moo-jun, who enlisted after giving up acting, started acting again? He said, "Many friends worry a lot when they go to the military. I also quit acting and went. I enlisted having given up acting. But when I went, I had a lot of time and there was nothing I could do other than acting. In high school I focused more on acting than studying, and acting seemed to be what I was good at. So I thought, while I'm in the military, I'll try just this much as a last line. I did that, and after discharge I passed and continued."
As he wraps up 2025, Kim Moo-jun looked back on this year and looked ahead to next year, saying, "With three works released in 2025 I felt I lived busily. Now that it's ending and I look back, it seems I wasn't that busy. I could have been busier. I have lingering regrets that I could have done more activities."
He said, "I think each year passes quickly. The feeling that I should leave something behind grows stronger as time goes on. In 2026 I can live a little busier. To live busily, thankfully there will need to be work, and these days I think I must live diligently to create it."
When encouraged that he may have saved himself a military gap more than others, Kim Moo-jun showed passion, saying, "I don't want to be self-satisfied with that. That's fine as it is, and I'm very greedy. I want to do more things. Right now I'm fired up."
[Photo] 9ato Entertainment, SBS Dynamite Kiss provided
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