For 20-year-old actor Kim Ji-seok, acting is a process of self-exploration. In his upcoming Netflix movie “Husbands,” which will be released in June, the actor plays a drug kingpin and brings out a side of himself that he didn’t know he had.
“There’s always a desire in every actor to twist the image they’ve been projecting, and ‘Husbands’ was a role that allowed me to do that, and I approached it very differently.”
Coming to Netflix in June, Husbands is a comedic action movie about a group of husbands who join forces to rescue their wives after they are kidnapped by a criminal organization. Kim Ji-seok plays the head of a drug organization. He gained 4 to 5 kilograms and changed his clothes and gait. The transformation didn’t stop with his appearance. These days, he spends a lot of time looking at himself, both on and off screen.
Learning about family through acting… “A chance to make choices and focus”
With nearly 20 years of experience in a variety of roles, Kim says he’s discovered a new side of himself with each work.
“Every production has pushed me to break my limits, and in the process, I’ve discovered things about myself that I didn’t know, and acting has helped me grow.”
One of the most memorable was the tvN drama ‘I Don’t Know Much, But I’m Family’. Immersing myself in the drama’s family relationships made me see real families for the first time. “I knew my friend’s MBTI, but I didn’t know his mom and dad’s favorite color or foot size, and they were the closest people to me.”
After the drama, he changed the way he met his family. When he saw his mom, he would only talk about her, and when he saw his dad, he would only talk about him. He began to unravel the relationships that had been lumped together in the word family and look at them one by one, which naturally led to more questions for himself.
“Thinking about my family made me ask myself, ‘What do they think of me?’ And I think that made me focus on myself.”
This change is reflected in our relationships. I used to attend most of the gatherings of people around me. It was natural to radiate energy outward.
“I think focusing on me has changed the way I spend my energy, because I’m choosing to focus on the people I’m connecting with, and I’m giving more, and I’m focusing on relationships.”
A playful approach to aging
A few years ago, I participated in a program in Japan to look inside myself. Over the course of four days and five nights, you’re supposed to cut your life in six-year increments and work your way back through your memories.
“When you close your eyes and meditate, at some point you cross the boundaries of consciousness and enter the unconscious, and that’s when you start to see yourself in the third person, and you start to see the roots of why you’ve always been a mood maker, why you’ve always been a people pleaser.”
Looking into myself didn’t just happen through intentional practice. This was the case the day I climbed Hallasan. On the way to the top, I was breathlessly chasing the heels of the person in front of me, but it was only on the way down that I realized the path I had taken.
“The winding paths, the uniquely shaped stones and trees… all of which I had missed on the way up. From that day forward, I made a conscious effort to notice the ‘process’ of my daily life rather than the outcome.”
The more he looks at himself, the more he thinks about how to age. As of January 1 of this year, he calls himself forty-six.
“If I’m forty-five anyway, I might as well put a year on my age, because then I’ll get that nice, ‘You don’t look that old’ (laughs).”
It’s a joke, but the signals your body sends are pretty clear. Strange moments when you put your right foot forward and your left foot can’t keep up, or when you feel like you’re not as tall as you used to be. In my twenties and thirties, I could run endlessly without recharging, but now how I conserve and protect my energy has become a major challenge.
“You can’t avoid aging, so do I take it in stride without any preparation, or do I age naturally in the best way I can. That’s my real question these days.”
His decision to take care of his teeth was similar: He started with the health of his teeth, just as he would a new floor in an old house.
“It was a bigger undertaking than I thought it would be, but once I finished it, it was a strange transformation. It’s not just when you smile that you feel confident, it’s when you’re about to smile. It’s that moment right before you smile that you feel confident, and it’s like, ‘I can smile anytime.
He is scheduled to release a series of films in the second half of this year, starting with the movie “Husbands,” followed by the drama “Yes, Let’s Get Divorced” and the movie “Separation” with Lee Min-jung. He will also continue to communicate with fans in a more personalized way through YouTube.
When I asked him how he’d like to be remembered after more than two decades of playing colorful lives, he told me a story about mothers bumping into each other in restaurants.
“Why did you do that to her then?”
It’s been years since the drama ‘When the Camellia Blooms’ ended, but people still remember and greet him as baseball player Kang Jong-ryul. The same was true when he was called “Shin Ji Hoon” in “I Need Romance,” which put him on the map as a rock star.
When asked about the public calling him by his character’s name rather than his real name, Kim Ji-seok, he said that instead of feeling embarrassed, he feels overwhelmingly happy.
“When someone remembers me for the role itself, it makes me feel like, ‘I was a good actor,’ because it’s such an honor to have a page in someone’s memory, and I want to be the kind of actor that stays fresh in someone’s memory.”
