Photo: Handout
South Korean star Song Joong-ki (pic), who has won commercial and critical television success through works such as Reborn Rich (2022) and Vincenzo (2021), cannot find work outside of South Korea.
He said in a recent interview with The Korea Herald in Seoul that he has been looking for new genres and projects to try internationally.
“Many people think that I’ve become interested in doing overseas projects after marrying my wife, but I’ve been going to global auditions for many years to try more genres in different cultures and systems,” he added.
He said that his wife Katy Louise Saunders, a British actress, has helped to arrange meetings and auditions for him as she “has friends in the UK and Hollywood”.
“But sadly, I failed all of those auditions,” he said with a laugh.
The actor, who got married in January, returned to South Korea after spending nine months in Saunders’ home town in Rome, Italy, where the couple welcomed their son in June.
Song, whose projects are mostly TV dramas, said the horror genre is on his to-try list.
The baby-faced actor, 38, chose to show his rough-and-tumble side in rookie director Kim Chang-hoon’s noir flick Hopeless.
“I’ve always wanted to do the noir genre. Hopeless was a project that was so coveted that I came to read it only by chance,” said Song.
“I was asked if it would be okay for me to play a supporting role. I also decided to join the project for free.”
Any added cost to the project would mean having to seek outside investment, which could affect the storyline and the film’s direction, he said.
In Hopeless, Song plays Chi-gun, a gang boss’ right-hand man with a shadowy past. The story follows 18-year-old Yeon-kyu (Hong Xa-bin), who enters the world of crime after meeting Chi-gun.
“Throughout the film, it remains ambiguous whether Chi-gun appeared in front of Yeon-kyu to save his life or to take Yeon-kyu’s life to the edge. I loved that and found it very cinematic, something that can be shown only through a movie,” Song said.
Hopeless premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May in the non-competitive category.
Song said: “I heard that European audiences found our film very interesting for the subjects it deals with, such as family violence. Our film’s message left an impression.”
His next project, the Netflix film My Name Is Loh Kiwan, which deals with a North Korean defector seeking refugee status in Belgium, will hopefully evoke a similar interest in global audiences as well, he added.
His wife was with him in Cannes, but did not attend red-carpet events or the screening because she was near her due date, he said. Some violent scenes in the film were not easy for her to watch as well.
“She hasn’t watched the film yet. It’s really hard for a couple with a newborn baby to sit down and finish a whole movie,” he said, as he showed a picture of his three-month-old son on his smartphone.
“I cannot believe that I have become a father. There is no one right answer to taking care of a baby, but I try to do my best.
“I speak to him in Korean as my English isn’t that good. My wife and I have talked about it too. We’ll figure out how the three of us will communicate,” he said.
Meanwhile, Song’s Reborn Rich is in the running for the best TV movie/mini-series award at the International Emmys, which will be held in New York on Nov 20.
The popular revenge drama featured him playing a conglomerate employee who was murdered and then reincarnated as the youngest son of the company.
Reborn Rich is up against British drama Life And Death In The Warehouse, French sci-fi thriller series Infiniti and Mexican drama La Caida. - The Korea Herald/Asia News Network
