Kim Seon Ho – ARENA Homme+ July 2023 Interview
We met Kim Seon-ho, who likes acting and wants to be better at acting because he likes it.
THE LEARNED KIM SEON HO
Your last photo shoot was with ARENA. We are meeting outside the studio today so how is it?
Honestly, I feel apologetic, because it doesn’t feel like I’m working. (laughs) This is my first time taking part in an outdoor photo shoot but it feels like I’m going out to have some fun. Everyone is a pro (at what they are doing) so I thought that I could do my best, but now that I’m watching the blooming flowers and even going into the creek, it feels like I’m here to play. Is it okay for me to feel like this?
If you feel like you are having fun while working, then it means that you are a pro. You started acting as a stage actor. Up until now, you would be taking part in a play, standing on the stage every year without fail. Is there any reason why the stage is important to Kim Seon-ho?
It seems that my acting improves the most when I take part in stage plays. I really want to be good at acting. There’s this one special thing about being a stage actor. They have to do the same act for months, right? Watching other actors who portray the same character as me is also a great help. That’s how I feel that I’m building my skills little by little.
Acting is like working out then, seeing how it could be helpful to have drill training for both.
Of course. After repeating the phrase “Hello” for 3 months with the same expression and voice, you’ll realize that it would be different than before. This is the point of difference between stage play and movie. Once you are done with filming for a movie or drama, there is no way to repeat the acting you have done.
If we are to compare acting with training for baseball, then the stage is like a place for you to attend spring camp.
Of course, the responsibility is huge since it is a project. Still, it still feels like I am going out to have fun – just like today – when I go to the practice sessions. A senior of mine said this to me before, “You’re busy but you still make time for stage plays?” I answered, “It’s more or less like taking a rest.” Once you take part in a play, you have to participate in 6-hour practice sessions, even if it’s not every day. The actors will gather and talk about various things: their situations, our differences, difficulties, and good things. Just like how we are sitting facing each other today and having a conversation, we would listen to each other as we laugh and talk some more. My heart will grow warm as I spend my time like that. Later on, when I recall that time, I’d be like, “Wow, I had a fun time there.”
By the time this interview is released, the movie The Childe would already be screening in cinemas. This is your first movie project, so do you think that your stage acting experience has helped you?
Absolutely. When it comes to exercise, the lower body workout is important. Stage acting is like doing squats. It allows you to go think of and learn the most important foundation of acting.
What is the foundation, for example?
An actor’s pronunciation and voice tone have to be versatile. Between stage acting and screen acting, there are technical differences. For instance, in a movie, if you mumble very slightly, the scene could turn out to be fun, but you can’t do that on a stage, since the audience won’t be able to hear what you are saying. If you portray the sad emotion solely through your eyes, only the audience sitting in the first three front rows would be able to see you onstage. Instead, you have to shout loudly or fall down (to show the emotions). It’s something you could also do for drama but it is more effective onstage.
If stage acting is like doing squats, then movie or drama is like elaborate target skills.
That’s right since you have to deliver the lines and portray the emotions with subtlety in front of the camera. However, every kind of acting shares the same context which is to deal with emotions.
So, even if they are resting, it matters what an actor does during that time. How do you spend your rest time usually?
I take a proper rest. These days, I spend most of my time with my family. Yesterday, during a dinner with fellow actors, we talked about how difficult it is to become a family to an actor. After all, actor is a job that requires you to work using your emotions. Because of that reason, the family might have to be wary or nervous. There will be times when the family would have to be more careful of what they do because they are somebody’s family. Having meals and going for a walk together might help to relieve the family’s pressure a bit.
“If I am to compare it with a workout, stage acting is like doing squats. It allows you to go think of and learn the most important foundation of acting.”
Your next two movies would also be of the noir genre. There are bound to be overlaps with other projects while you are filming for the movies, so don’t you get confused?
I do get confused. Hence, if it’s possible, I am the type that tries to coordinate and avoid taking on overlapping projects. Whenever I am working on a certain project, I tend not to browse through the script for my upcoming projects too many times. After all, the next projects are all that I have chosen because I like them, right? If I read the scripts, I’d think about them frequently and wish that I could start working on them faster. Then, I wouldn’t be able to focus on the current project I’m working on.
It could also become another factor in deciding on your next project, then.
That’s right. I think that’s due to my shortcomings. Honestly, when it comes to deciding on a project, the most important thing is the people; when I look at the director, the cast, and the staff who would be working on it, and have the thought, ‘I want to work with them’, I’d choose to join the project without thinking twice. I’d say okay at once.
How was it when you first received the offer for the movie The Childe?
Ohhh my heart was burning. When I heard that an offer for my next project was a movie, I was like, “A movie?” I met the director first before I received the scenario. I really enjoyed watching Director Park Hoon-jung’s work, The Witch. As soon as I met him, the first thing I said was, “Director-nim, A New World is something else alright, but the crumbling wall scene in The Witch was really crazy.” The director then replied, “I did pay extra attention to that scene.” I remembered he really loved it back then. (laughs)
We are curious about what the director said about the reason for your casting.
He received the recommendation from people around him. In the past, he did receive recommendations for actor Kim Seon-ho, but he did not like the picture on my profile. (laughs) ‘This face is not for noir.’ He thought so and this time around, he got the recommendation again and decided, ‘Alright, let’s meet him in person once.’
Among all the roles you have portrayed so far, which character is the most similar to the person Kim Seon-ho?
All of them are Kim Seon-ho. Bright or dark, each of them has a little bit of Kim Seon-ho in them. I also undergo some small changes as a person in order to match the role. Still, playing the role of a killer doesn’t bring out a killer’s instinct within me. (laughs) However, there are times when I feel that the way I talk becomes a bit rough, so I am like, “Oh, do I even use this kind of word too?” The most similar character would be Kim Rae-wan from You Drive Me Crazy! He resembled pre-acting Kim Seon-ho the most.
How were you before you started acting?
Extremely shy and timid? As people grow up and take part in social life, they will form a professional attitude. Before I built that attitude, I used to be a passive person.
It’s difficult to imagine you as such from how we have been talking until now. Do you have a role you’d like to portray in the future?
Since I have given noir a try through The Childe and the upcoming Tyrant, I want to return to playing humane characters, Well, it’s like wanting to be a part of something? If there is a project whose narrative is carried by one particular character, then there is also a project that shows the lives of different people in it. These days, I want to try out small roles in the latter part of a project. Rather than being ‘the one’, I want to be ‘one among the others’.
Kim Seon-ho’s 5 Movies of My Life:
– Infernal Affairs (2002) directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak
– Chungking Express (1994) directed by Wong Kar-wai
– You Are My Sunshine (2005) directed by Park Jin-pyo
– A Beautiful Mind (2001) directed by Ron Howard
– If Only (2004) by Gil Junger
“As I keep on living, everything that I have encountered would somehow be incorporated into acting. If I am to become a good actor, I have to become a good person first.”
Seon-stin (True West), Seon-lentin (Kiss of the Spider Woman), Seonho-Gyeongmin (Rooftop House Cat), and Seonho-Eden (Memory in Dream) are just some of the many nicknames you had. Do you have a personal favourite among the nicknames?
At the moment, it’s Gongja (Nobleman, or could also be translated as Confucius LOL). The fans have been saying while waiting for The Childe, “Our Gongja is here?” “Our Gongja is back.” I’m amazed and thankful at how the fans always come out with nicknames every single time.
We have only watched the trailer so far, but Kim Seon-ho in The Childe is so different from Kim Seon-ho that we all know. Because of that, it seems that you yourself had to do some homework in overcoming that difference.
(Overcoming) the difference was the most important homework for me. There seemed to be a boundary of actor Kim Seon-ho that couldn’t be crossed, which means that I couldn’t show a different Kim Seon-ho that is completely opposite of the standard Kim Seon-ho. If I were to appear on the screen portraying a completely different character, wouldn’t the audience feel repulsed by the transformation? Having these kinds of thoughts, I was suddenly overwhelmed with fear. Hence, I decided to try doing something that I could do; I was like, ‘Let’s go to the farthest inside the boundary of Kim Seon-ho’.
You must have heard so many praises up until now. Do you have any praise that you really love to hear?
“You’re very good at acting.” That is the one that I love the most. There are no criteria or standards when it comes to good acting. While we were filming for the movie The Childe, there was this one time when Director Park Hoon-jung was monitoring a scene when he suddenly clapped and said, “Seonho-ya, this is good. You really did a good job for this scene.” Upon hearing that, I felt so good and that feeling went on to last for about 3 days. There’s no way I could ever get enough of this kind of euphoria. It feels good when you go shopping and eat delicious food, but that feeling doesn’t last long. Of course, there are times when I couldn’t act well right after getting compliments, and I would be in despair. Despite the repeating cycle of happiness and despair, I see this as the joy of being an actor.
This might sound like a vague question, but what makes an actor a good one, according to Kim Seon-ho?
It’s been the same, from the time I started to learn about acting until now. “An actor one would want to act with again in another project.” The attitude on the set, the acting skill that is technically wonderful, and the consideration in making fellow actors shine. If one could meet these three conditions, then everyone would want to work with them again. Is there anything better than having a good actor like that?
After watching Seonho-nim’s acting all this while, we thought of you as ‘an actor who can laugh and cry really well’. Which one is more difficult technically for an actor: to laugh or to cry?
Perhaps, every actor would say the same thing: laughing is the most difficult thing. There’s nothing as hard as acting with laughter.
That’s a surprise to hear. We thought that crying (in acting) would be the difficult one.
Most actors would start their acting lesson by shouting or crying. There’s this sense of emotional relief because of the catharsis felt. It’s fairly possible to produce sad emotions inside me; on the contrary, laughter would only come out when several factors are met. I heard someone say that they had to film a laughing scene 40 times.
So, it would be even more difficult to let your tears roll as you laugh in acting.
It is difficult. Only if you have a strong innermost self that you could attempt that kind of acting. Should you try acting out complex emotions with a light heart, then it would be obvious and people would notice it.
After listening to you, we think that you are someone who really loves acting. Between acting yourself and watching someone else act, which one do you enjoy more?
It’s fun to watch other people’s acting. They’re amazing and wonderful. ‘What did these people go through earlier today for them to be able to show such great acting like that?’ ‘What kind of traditional medicine did they eat this morning?’ ‘What is their secret (to good acting)?’ It’s the most enjoyable thing to watch them act as I thought about these things.
There is a difference between ‘something that I like’ and ‘something that I’m good at’. As for Seonho-him, what is acting to you between those two?
Acting is nearer to something that I like, of course. I like it, so I want to be good at acting. But then, acting while risking your life doesn’t mean that your acting skills would improve proportionally. There are times when the moments in real life that are unrelated to acting would be deemed useful and incorporated into my acting. If one wants to become a good actor, they have to become a good person.
Like you mentioned just now, actor is a job that requires you to work with emotions. These days, what kind of effort do you make as an actor?
I try not to act with too much precision. Back then, I couldn’t understand the saying ‘Actors should allow the audience’s imagination to do their magic.’ I thought that it’s good to have precise pronunciation and exact expression. However, as I went to watch other actors, their actions made me imagine: ‘Why is he standing still?’ ‘He wants to die, but why is he standing still?’ The kind of acting that allows the viewers to imagine themselves..that makes it even more dramatic. These days, I pay attention to this kind of thing.
There are times when actors want to ask questions too.
Of course, there are. I ask questions regardless of their age. I did that too yesterday. There were fellows who were very much younger than me during a drama script reading session. I couldn’t stop laughing after watching them act. They were just in their early 20s, yet they could deliver such great acting. One of them played an antagonist, yet they portrayed the role with kindness. This young friend has already known what I only knew after learning for a long time. Hence, I decided to ask them, “About that acting just now, was it something you planned beforehand?” “Have you always been great at cursing?” Their curses sounded so natural. It turns out that they did curse from time to time normally but not frequently. (laughs) It’s really me who has to do better. I’m really slow. I should be more diligent in studying my script. Asking questions makes me reflect on myself.
Do you have a role model?
I don’t have one, because all actors are my role models. I want to learn from all of them. I especially respect all the seniors. I think that there are discoveries to be made through acting as well. For instance, Joker. The first actor who portrayed the character Joker probably agonized over it greatly on how to show that sinister grin. That was an achievement of his. Following and copying something is easy. It gets easier for us younger actors to advance faster since there are the seniors who paved the way. Thus, I feel like a pathetic man because I don’t have that kind of achievement. It’s my dream to show an acting that could be regarded as a discovery one day.
It’s also important for actors to manage their stress levels, just like ordinary workers. What do you do when things don’t seem to go your way? I would order Kyochon chicken.
I also find mat-jib (famous restaurants with delicious food) to relieve my stress. I really love eating. I don’t really drink before this, but nowadays, I’m discovering the joy of drinking a can of beer. (laughs) It’s good. I like going out for walks while listening to music. I don’t have a particular genre of music (for walking) but listening to someone’s voice as I walk makes my heart calm. The way to relieve stress might be going back to something that is close to your daily life since you can do that thing anytime.
On that note, what are you planning to eat after we are done with this photo shoot?
I feel like grilling and eating meat right here. There is a reason why I feel so excited.
This is the last question. What kind of actor and person you would want to be remembered as, 50 years later?
I hope I can be someone who continues to act. As long as I can continue acting, I think I can be happy, no matter what I look like. As a person, maybe just a fun person; one that people want to be together with. Nothing serious or difficult, I hope to become a simple person in a good sense.
Kim Seon-ho’s 5 Plays of My Life:
– True West by Sam Shepard
– Kill Me Now by Brad Fraser
– Richard the Third by William Shakespeare
– Touching the Void by Davi Greig
– Rooftop Room Cat by Kim Yu-ri
