LMD: In our last interview, we spoke of the difference of emotional levels between Hollywood actors and Korean actors. You said, “Korean actors try to shake the audience’s emotions; they try so hard to express their emotions. So, good actors in Korea, they hide their emotions, like Song Kang-ho. When he acts, he doesn’t show his emotions, and I think people like that.”
So, tell us what you learned from working with him?
CW: Having this kind of experience on the set, it was almost like the best lesson. It was like school, almost. I learned many things from Song Kang-ho. This time I learned that he’s always in character. It’s not like method kind of style, but he tried to be very focused even though we are like laughing behind the scenes, but he’s always on point, always on the edge, focused. So, you know, he’s one of those figures that you can just go watch him acting, and it’s like watching a five hour lesson.
The term “God of Acting” gets thrown around pretty freely these days. However, LMD got to meet the real deal.
In his fourth collaboration with Bong Joon-ho, (after MEMORIES OF MURDER, THE HOST and SNOWPIERCER), South Korea’s superstar, Song Kang-ho, exclusively revealed the common man appeal of the Palme d’Or-winning PARASITE, why the director’s relentlessness keeps him coming back for more, and stops to praise a certain interviewer along the way.
(PS: Be warned! – Song reveals a PARASITE spoiler midway through the second question.)
Dig it!
The Lady Miz Diva: I was the first person to interview Director Bong Joon-ho during his first US press for THE HOST ten years ago, so I feel like I have been waiting a long time to meet you. Please tell us what is special to you about your collaboration with Director, and how it has grown or changed from MEMORIES OF MURDER through PARASITE?
Song Kang-ho: Director Bong has received more than twenty years of love and attention from the industry in Korea. What I really like about him is his realism; his worldview on the society and the people that we live with. I feel like his views have become more relentless, persistent, and meticulous over the years, and I think PARASITE is really the concentrated result of all those years of effort.
LMD: Are you an actor who has to find the humanity in, or be able to identify with your characters? What did you find in Ki-taek that you clung to to create him? What was the aspect of him that stood out to you most?
SKh: Ki-taek appears to be a bit indecisive, not very able. He’s certainly not an able provider for the family; but I suspect that he wasn’t like that from the beginning. That he, like everyone else, always had hoped to provide for the family, to give them a comfortable environment, just like any average guy. But unlike his intention, or desire to do so, the world was difficult to fight, so he was sort of left on his own, and the odds weren’t in his favor.
So, I think this pessimism on his part, which you really see in the gymnasium scene, where he tells his son that no plan is the best; I don’t think he’s always been like that. This sort of pessimism comes from a sense of defeat on his part, because he’s never been able to win in the society. So, from my perspective, Ki-taek is actually very average, very ordinary. So, he might seem like a strange, special character, but I think there were are a lot of aspects in him that are very relatable.
Even his very sudden violence at the peak of the film, stabbing the owner of the house; that looks out of the ordinary, but even that, I felt that there was a certain way in which his actions made sense. That when his pride was hurt -- the last remaining bits of his dignity and his pride were hurt by the owner’s words -- it wasn’t really out of hatred against the owner, but it was really out of this desperate sense of trying to grab onto the last bits and pieces of his dignity. It was an expression of that.
LMD: You clued in on my favourite shot in the movie: It’s the scene after the flood, in the gym/shelter; Ki-woo and Ki-taek are talking in the dark. Ki-taek, defeated and depressed, tells his son “There is no plan.” Ki-woo says “Dad, I’m sorry for everything.” In that scene, I felt like I didn’t see Song Kang-ho and Choi Wooshik anymore; you had transformed into father and son.
I’ve always been fascinated by your acting technique. Mr. Choi said you stay in character’s frame of mind pretty much for the whole filming. Does staying in the frame of mind of the character help you to melt into that character’s skin the way you do so beautifully in your films?
SKh: It’s a trade secret! {Laughs}
LMD: I’ll write it in English, so nobody in Korea can understand it!
SKh: {Laughs} Just kidding! To be honest, I’m not the type of actor who really goes out of the way and struggles to try to be the character. But if I am really deserving of such a positive evaluation, which I thank you for, I think it’s less about absorbing myself into the character, but rather I try to understand the larger framework of the film -- the larger narrative. And I try to think about what is the essence, what is the message that I need to send across to the audience? So, I think me looking very natural in the character is sort of like a byproduct of that kind of effort.