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For some reason, it is hard to think of Hyun Bin's smiling face. And it is not simply because he is playing the role of a poor and agonized man wanting to escape from his dire situation but ends up in a hospital after diagnosed as a megalomaniac in the recent film "I Am Happy." Hyun's role in TV series ranging from MBC's "Ireland" in 2004, KBS' "The Snow Queen," "The World That They Live In" to MBC's "Friend, Our Legend," were all characters who were mostly suppressed in some way or is facing a dead end. Even in the romantic comedy drama "My Name is Kim Sam-Soon", he successfully portrayed the sorrowful pain that his character had deep in his heart. For this, Hyun came to be acknowledged as an actor with a dignified presence at the young age of 28 and the time spent with him was an opportunity to confirm this. He did smile frequently though, opposite from expectations.
10: A year has already passed since we met while you were shooting "The World That They Live In."
Hyun Bin (Hyun): I've been extremely busy these days. Usually I'm not such a workaholic, but I've been offered with great roles one after another, and thus the past year or two meant constant work for me.
10: In fact, the film "I Am Happy" was completed before shooting "The World That They Live In." How did you feel after watching the film again after it was selected as the closing film at the 14th Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF)?
Hyun: It was the same in that it was stifling. (laugh) However, I had a chance to watch it more closely unlike during the PIFF, when concentrating wasn't easy.
10: What do you mean by when you say it was stifling?
Hyun: The movie it self is depressing and miserable. It's hard to put it in words, but I could say it may be something similar to wanting to drink in the middle of the night for no specific reason? (laugh)
10: But you chose to take on the depressing plot. (laugh) Well, the character from the original novel "Mr. Cho Man-deuk" written by the late Lee Chung-joon is not only a man in his late 30s but the situation he is placed in is also very painful.
Hyun: I got to read the initial scenario before seeing the book, but the character had originally been set to be older and he was also in a slightly different situation. But while reading the depressing scenario, I found myself smiling. It wasn't because it was funny, but for some reason I couldn't help myself from smiling. I told director Yoon that I really want to play this role and that I'm queerly attracted to it.
10: Man-soo from "I Am Happy" has a dull look in his eyes even before he is diagnosed with megalomania. He neither has a chance to recover from poverty nor does he have a dramatic story. Why did you choose to dive into such hardship by selecting a plot which is surely not popular and is not much that you can obtain from?
Hyun: The scenario was different from others. I couldn't predict whether I can successfully play out Man-soo's character or not. And although it may seem irresponsible, I couldn't tell the director surely that I would be able to take on the role and do a good job of it. Rather, I told him candidly, "I am not confident that I will be able to do this well, but I will do my best." I guess I wasn't wrong in thinking that there would be a lot of lessons to learn.
10: What exactly did you learn?
Hyun: The film came to me at the exact time when I had to look back on myself once in a while. While shooting, I asked myself whether I'm happy or not. I asked myself about happiness, myself and things about my career. Of course, I wasn't able to find an answer. (laugh) It's hard to find an end to these questions. But, the process, the two or three months or so, did have a great impact on me. Though I don't know how others will evaluate my acting, the film itself was valuable time for me.
10: You acted as a mad man in this movie unlike Kang-gook from "Ireland" or Tae-woong from "The Snow Queen" who controlled their emotions rationality. What was it like to pretend to be 'insane'?
Hyun: It was painful. Like I told director Yoon, the entire process of shooting the film was distressing and painful. But what was interesting was that I was able to gain a deeper fun out of such pain. Acting as characters in my previous works, in fact, involved me pulling out a certain aspect within myself or exaggerating it. Man-soo and I, however, did not have a single similarity including the situated environment or personality. Therefore, I discussed with the director regarding Man-soo's looks or movements. Doing so helped me to endure the painful moments.
10: The pain Man-soo went through when he was receiving electric shock therapy was also delivered straight to the viewers. The moment when his face gets red-hot without being able to make a single sound was especially impressive.
Hyun: I thought hard on how I should portray such pain while being tied to a bed. I read books and saw movies that deal with megalomania, got information from the director and met patients who are suffering from it. My face turned red because I was really holding my breath and in the process, I once spat out the mouthpiece because I had stopped breathing.
10: So after so much studying about megalomaniacs, what do you think is the line that separates a 'normal man' from a megalomaniac?
Hyun: It's just a matter of seriousness. Everyone is mad in some sense. I think it's all about figuring out for what and to what extent a person is mad.
10: Then, do you think you've 'gone too far' compared with others? (laugh)
Hyun: Well, I don't think I've gone that far. (laugh)
10: It seems people would call you a workaholic.
Hyun: No, this is a special situation. In the early days of my acting career, I used to take breaks for almost 6 months after finishing a drama or film despite having nothing to rely on.
10: You've received a lot of attention since your debut and have continued to see success. What were your thoughts when you first started acting?
Hyun: I started doing plays in high school and continued to do theater in college when somebody asked me to go to an audition and I got signed on for a role. I took a leave from school and did a movie. At the time, I just thought I was acting in front of a camera instead of on a stage. Like I had just found a new space for acting. I would have continued to feel that way if my movies did well, but it got flopped when we were about 60 percent into shooting so I started getting more ambitious. I was on a leave from school, working hard, and I didn’t want to go back to school just like that. So I started preparing for this industry. I also wanted to be compensated for all the time I spent away from school. (laugh) Honestly, it was different from theater but fun in its own way. I started thinking that I wanted to give it a real shot.
10: You sound like you want to be in control of your career, as if you're saying “I will be the one who decides when I'll retire.”
Hyun: If I didn’t want it for myself, I would have just given up. (laugh) But I met some good people at the time and I was able to continue working. I’m always grateful that I’ve been blessed with good people around me.
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| Actor Hyun Bin [Chae Ki-won/10Asia] |
Hyun: They made me like them. I’m not the type of person who says things like, “I love you”. (laugh) But I will call them and ask them how they’re doing every now and then. I don’t go out and hang out with certain groups of people, I just keep in touch with people that I have worked with.
10: What do you do in your free time after you've finished a project?
Hyun: I get rid of everything from my previous role. I only look at things for my next role after I’ve gotten rid of the things related to my previous role. I feel like I’m not giving it my all when I pay attention to other things, even just for a few days, so I try not to look at other projects or shoot commercials when I’m working on something. I sometimes I get into trouble because of that. (laugh) When I finish a project, I do things that I didn’t have time to do and when my next project has been set, I prepare for it. If I need to exercise, I exercise. If I need to play the piano, I play the piano.
10: When you say you “get rid of things”, it feels like you’re not using the things you’ve gained from the experience or naturally have in your talent. You have your good looks, but you neither try to discourage it nor flaunt it.
Hyun: To be honest, I’m not conscious about it. If there is anything that I do for my appearance, it is that I try to watch my weight a little. You might find this hard to believe but I weighed 80 kilograms on the first episode of “My Name Is Kim Sam Soon”. I usually lose about 4.5 kgs by the time I finish a project, so I start off with a little extra weight. Then I’ll weigh 76 kgs even if I lose some weight. (laugh) Other than that, I balance my muscle mass according to the circumstances. If there is a scene I need to work-out for, then I'll get rid of body fat and fill the body weight with muscle. But in case of “The World That They Live In”, I felt that a television drama director wouldn’t have time to go to the gym, so I didn’t work out at all.
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| Actor Hyun Bin [Chae Ki-won/10Asia] |
Hyun: I'm not too sure about anything else, but I have a face that easily changes with a different hairstyle or makeup. That I like. And I’m grateful when I hear people say I'm handsome or a pretty boy but I really don’t care for such words that much. There are many guys around me who are much more handsome than I am. (laugh)
10: You must get a lot of offers which try to take advantage of your star power as Hyun Bin, but you seem to avoid taking those offers in particular.
Hyun: I do get such offers but I think they just weren’t my type of work. I don’t mean to say they were good or bad, I just wasn’t attracted to them. I can’t abandon my so-called star power completely, but I don’t want to be led by it either.
10: In that regard, “Friend, Our Legend” (“Friend”) is something you said you chose to do even though you knew people would talk about it unfavorably.
Hyun: That’s right. People told me negative things about it even before I started working on it. (laugh) I hadn't even set my foot in the water and heard a lot of things. People told me it would be better if I didn’t do it. The film left such a strong impression and the acting by my senior actors had been so good that I was told I would have a tough time even if I pulled off the character Dong-soo. A lot of people were against me taking on the drama, but I just went ahead with it and did it.
10: But as the movie enters the second half, you did establish a different character than the one played by Jang Dong-gun in the film. What sort of character did you want to express Dong-soo as?
Hyun: I created a more sensitive Dong-soo since the drama version had a lot of melodrama elements, especially with Jin-sook, added into it. The tone of the drama was more mellow because even with all the fighting scenes, I would either be showing tears before or after the fight or my relationship with Jin-sook would be revealed which would soften the atmosphere. I think the biggest difference was the melodramatic side to Dong-soo.
10: When you look back it now, what did you gain from doing “Friend”?
Hyun: I think the most significant thing was that I was able to work with people like director Kwak Kyung-taek and his staff on the story that I had dreamed about doing since 2001, even before my debut. The whole process, from the reading sessions, shooting and monitoring afterwards, creating facial expressions and building on the character, and the people I worked with.. I gained a lot from the experience.
10: You must've not been sure of what you would gain from the experience when you first started. Are you the type that goes ahead with a plan and think later?
Hyun: I usually am. If I like something, I just go ahead with it. If I decide that I want to try doing this project, I don’t really pay attention to other circumstances. Whatever the consequence, that comes later so I just make a choice and do it.
10: But since you are acting in an entertainment business, having luck is as important as putting in your own efforts. Sometimes, things don't turn out the way you had anticipated and lead you onto a completely different direction. Do you have any fears about choosing which role you'll take on next?
Hyun: No. If I go way off track, then I can just walk back. Whatever role I take on, I don’t know what will happen. And once I take on a role and start shooting, there are always bound to be people who are keeping an eye on the overall situation. So if everything continues to move along and they give me the green light, I'm guessing it means that I'm doing alright. Hence when say that “I am not responsible for the ratings or the number of viewers", which I always say, is really is because the outcome isn't dependent on me. My part is to do my best in front of the camera til the end, before the results come out.
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10: You said that you weren’t trying to make some sort of calculated transformation in the film “I Am Happy”. It really does seem you weren't under the pressure to transform yourself but rather just taking on different roles every time.
Hyun: People tell me that my acting has gotten much better since doing “I Am Happy”. I think it’s because I had a lot of time to think by myself with this movie. It’s not easy to get rid of everything that was embedded in your body from your previous role but luckily, I think that I have been meeting the directors, one after another, who have helped me do that. Directors Yoon Jong-chan, Pyo Min-soo, Kwak Kyung-taek, Kim Tae-yong -- they all want something new. They don’t want to see the acting pattern of Hyun Bin that everyone is so familiar with. So I have no choice but to get rid of them. But it’s not like I can wash everything away completely so I just push them back for a moment. Someday, as I get older and keep acting, I think I will be able to use them all very well.
10: You are preparing to shoot the film “Manchu” with director Kim Tae-yong. That movie was first made in the 1960s. The original film was a melodrama about a fugitive and a well-behaved female inmate. What do you find attractive about the new role?
Hyun: The scenario was entertaining, and I thought that if this story was written in the 1960s it must have been a very sophisticated film. This is actually the fourth remake of “Manchu” but I have intentionally stayed away from watching the previous movies. I’m going to prepare for the movie on my own before going into shoot and watch everything at the very last minute.
10: Your co-star is actress Tang Wei of “Lust, Caution”, so you must get a lot of questions about that. But what truly worries you the most at this point, ahead of going into shoot?
Hyun: Language, of course. It’s a global project so everything is conducted in English, 100 percent. I’ve experienced language barriers when I did “Friend” so it’s even more overwhelming. The Busan dialect I used in “Busan” is Korean but it still lessened my emotions in my acting because I was worried about the language. So I’m worried about how much emotion I’ll be able to deliver in English, which isn’t my native language. I did a reading with Tang Wei before I came to Korea and had a talk with her, but I think it’s important to overcome the language barrier not just with my acting partner but with the entire crew as well because most of them are foreigners too. I’m going to try to get rid of the language barrier by practicing with an English tutor before filming starts. And from what I’ve discussed with the director, my character is someone who came to the U.S. three years ago so he doesn’t need to speak like a native and so I’m going to focus on delivering the emotions first. That makes me feel a little easier about the part.
10: You said that you want to be remembered by the names of your characters than as Hyun Bin. But when your play the characters, what people remember is the sense of trust that comes with the name Hyun Bin. Isn’t that ironic?
Hyun: I used to hate that, to be honest. When people called me “Kook” and not Hyun Bin after “Ireland” ended, I hated that. I thought that I should be called by my real name Hyun Bin back then and it was such a stupid thought. (laugh) But after “My Name Is Kim Sam Soon” ended, people kept calling me “Sam-shik” instead of my own name. After a while, I gradually realized how wonderful and lucky it was to be called that. So from a certain point on, I felt much happier when people called me by the names of my characters and not by my own. That’s all I need.
Reporter: Choi Ji-Eun five@10asia.co.kr
Photographer : Chae ki-won ten@10asia.co.kr
Editor: Linda Kim lindakim@asiae.co.kr, Lee Ji-Hye seven@10asia.co.kr, Jang Kyung-Jin three@10asia.co.kr
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How does this man not work out and still look sexy? I want to know his secret!
