Lee Dong Wook “Sincerity is Important”
Filming for your drama “Tale of the Nine Tailed” ended a few days ago. There’s no one who understands Lee Yeon as well as you. How is he like? He is cool. He’s also very capable. But I think his heart is even cooler than his appearance. This could sound childish, but one cannot become a mountain god with just a normal personality. I think he is a character with a strong inner self.
We also met like this around this time last year. The Lee Dong Wook that GQ confidently selected as “Man of the Year” is not afraid of challenges. What aspect of “Tale of the Nine Tailed” was a challenge to you? The premise of a male gumiho was novel to me and I liked that. This kind of work is rare compared to overseas fantasy works that we are familiar with. I hope more people get to know about the traditional folklore and Korean monsters. This will be a rather attractive story.
There are parts that you may have found absurd or childish when reading the script, so at what point were you sure that “this is the one”? Firstly, I enjoyed reading it. It was as though I was reading an interesting fantasy novel. The lines of dialogue in the script were also to my liking. It was good to read and the lines in the script are also good, so I got the feeling that at least the basics will be done.
You said this in an interview. In “Strangers From Hell”, you acted by adjusting along at the film set rather than trying to prepare thoroughly, and you also continued with this method in “Tale of the Nine Tailed”. Thankfully, the director gave me the green light to do so. The situational setting, details and lines were already there so I was able to act freely. In fact, about one-third of the lines were ad-libs. I did the same in “Goblin” too, but I think the key point of a fantasy production lies in how freely you can move around within the worldview created by the writer. You can’t interview a gumiho or a monster, and there are not many things you can prepare. You just need to freely find out at the film set.
The belief that “you will do well on your own” also has an underlying sense of responsibility. There is a question that is continuously repeated in my mind: “Will I be able to hold out?” Filming began in April and lasted for 7 months. It was a long process and it was exhausting. Filming the sequence of saving my brother from the Forest of the Starved took one week of great effort to complete. This may sound a little arrogant, but there was a lot of burden that I had to bear. My fellow cast mates and most of the staff members are younger than me. I think the desire to be a source of strength to them as a senior and the thought that I should not put pressure on the director and scriptwriter, who gave me the opportunity to act freely, dominated me.
We had no idea that you were occupied with this drama for more than half a year. Whatever that was shown to the public was just a drama that aired for two months. I hosted a talk show that carried my name until late February, and then I started preparing for the drama immediately after it ended. I’ve been working on projects almost every year for the past 21 years. So I’ve come to remember my time according to the projects I’ve done. What I had been doing from this period till that period, like that.
In your interview last year, you said you worked pretty hard and have been living a busy life, and nothing has changed this year too. What kind of self-assessment will you give for the year 2020? I think this has been a period of time where I continue to adapt to new things. Lee Dong Wook as an individual had to adapt to changes in social and daily life no matter what due to the corona virus situation, and at work, I worked hard to adapt to new human relationships and systems at the film set. I’ve already gotten accustomed to all these. I’ll be filming a movie from next week onwards. I will need to adapt to things over there too.
Even when you play characters with distinctive personalities, you’ve never taken on similar roles one after another. That’s why we always look forward to your next step. This time, I will be playing a very realistic character. A man in his mid-thirties that you can commonly see around you. It’s of the melo genre, and it will be a story that will make you think back of a similar experience you had in your life.
In every interview, you will always say something memorable as if to make sure we do not forget. “Being an actor is a job that requires selection and recognition.” Because it seems like your selection of projects have never diverged from the public’s attention, we will ask you this question. What do you consider as the most important basics of an actor in order to get selected? One needs to act well of course, and sincerity is also important. I’ve also been asked how I’ve managed to work for 21 years without rest; when people find me for projects and I work hard, I think people will now look at me and realise “Lee Dong Wook does not take shortcuts.” One might also think that you are losing out if you work sincerely. I think I also go at a slower pace compared to others. But there will come a time where that sincerity will shine, even if it’s just once. You have no choice but to hang in there until that time comes. I do everything that I have to do while grumbling too. Even though I say “Must I really do this?”, I will just do as I am told. This could probably be considered a charm of mine too.
For instance, how was today’s shoot? I kept being told to show an expression as though I’m irritated and angry. No, I mean…I can do that, but hearing “Please show us a feeling of irritation” on repeat made me feel irritated for real…but I still did everything despite that. Later on it became interesting.
When you did a physical test in “Because Lee Dong Wook Wants To Talk”, the results showed that your biological age is 32 years old right? Do you ever think to yourself “No matter how I age, I am still young”? I had to act with child actors and animals in “Tale of the Nine Tailed”, and I was able to relate well with them. I’m not sure if I’m immature or if my mental age is low, but it doesn’t seem like a bad thing. I hope my mind is always clear and healthy.
There are many comments related to your drama saying that “Lee Dong Wook, 40 is the age where your beauty is at its peak”, do you agree? That’s correct. Everyone in their forties in this country, please do not lose heart because this is the age where your cuteness and beauty are at their peak. Self-care is really important. These days there are many people who are concerned about my eye hole. I’ve even seen pictures comparing against how I looked in the past. My eye rim has naturally become deeper, but my body weight has a difference of 15kg compared to back then. I only believed in my young age and was not attentive in managing my appearance.
In “Tale of the Nine Tailed”, Lee Dong Wook’s face guides us to a world of imagination and the unreal. In actual fact, what kind of fantasy do you personally dream of and live in? One of my fantasies is being the frontman of a world-famous rock band. I get very envious when I look at people who can sing well. I’m also curious sometimes. How does it feel like to sing as a band on stage and radiate so much sexiness? I also have another fantasy. I dream of becoming a famous sportsman who scores a goal and holds a winning ceremony, or I score a home-run and I coolly throw the bat away. Someday I will play that kind of role…oh, that’s not possible. If I’m a sportsman, I’m at the age where I should be retiring.
Instead, you are playing the role of a male gumiho that no one has done before. Although the action scenes were tough, they were actually interesting. I get to hang on wires, fly in the sky and even fall off the roof. I really want to do hardcore action someday. A really realistic 19+ rated action.
If you were to pick action scene of the year? The escape from the Forest of the Starved sequence that I mentioned earlier. There was a lot more footage that got edited out compared to what was aired. We were running and rolling around at every waking moment. Then we got so exhausted from all that and collapsed into bed. We really suffered a lot filming that.
Speaking of which, how does it feel to be awarded “Man of the Year” 3 years in a row? What would be the line of the year? The line that I said in the “Tale of the Nine Tailed” teaser: “Do you really want to see it? The world that I live in.” I think it is meaningful as a line that leads the audience into the world of fantasy.
Laughter of the year that made you fall over from laughing? In the scene where Ji Ah (Cho Bo Ah) bought Lee Yeon’s favourite mint chocolate ice cream and said “I picked this up along the way”, I inserted this line “Since she said she picked it up along the way, I thought it was recycled trash” as an ad-lib. It was really funny when I watched it in the aired broadcast later. I wondered how that could be possible if one wasn’t crazy.
The funny scene from episode 7
Is there something like a snack of the year? Hotteok (Korean sweet pancake). That’s always first place for me. Whenever it’s around this time of the year, I will ask around for shops that sell hotteok. These days they don’t really appear in the results even when you do a search online. So I will always take note of the phone number first when I discover a shop that sells hotteok.
Sports match of the year that made you shudder from the thrill of it? Baseball player Ryu Hyun Jin’s final match of the season. He went up against the New York Yankees who had been giving a weak performance, and shut them out with 7 innings without losing a point. It was a perfect finale to wrap up the season.
Fashion of the year? The black suit that I wore in the first episode of “Tale of the Nine Tailed”. If I were to pick one more, it would be the Alexander McQueen collection I wore today. Ha ha ha. It really matched well with the setting of today’s photoshoot.
Black suit from episode 1
We can’t leave this out since you said you are envious of musicians. What is the song of the year? I’m into Day6 these days. I especially like the song “You Were Beautiful”. When I hear this line of the lyrics “You were beautiful, that gaze that looked at me, that voice that called me”, I am reminded of the heartrending story of Ji Ah and Lee Yeon. And the song “Blue Moon” from our drama OST. Just hearing the introduction melody alone makes my heart pound. It makes me think that it’s time for something to happen. The beat brings up the energy of a fantasy.
Translated by Gabby from Korean to English. Please credit if sharing.
Source: GQ Korea
Trivia: For those interested, the photos in this interview were shot at L’escape Hotel in Seoul 🙂
Check out King Kong’s Naver blog post for more behind-the-scenes photos.
Daegorr 