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| Actor Seol Kyung-gu / Courtesy of Megabox Plus M |
By Kwak Yeon-soo
Actor Seol Kyung-gu said the characters in "Kingmaker" are fictional, but they are inspired by prominent politicians, including former President Kim Dae-jung who served from 1998 to 2003. Because the film is inspired by the story rather than a factual telling of it, he had more room to take the film in a far more different direction than the true events.
In the political drama, Seol plays Kim Woon-beom, an opposition party candidate who has failed in several local elections. He teams up with "Seo Chang-dae (Lee Sun-kyung) to win the local election and run for the presidential election. The ambitious and unprincipled Seo uses all means to subvert the powers that be and put Kim in the position of presidential candidate.
The acclaimed actor revealed he was under a lot of pressure because he had to portray a well-known and respected public figure in Korea's modern history.
"The first script for 'Kingmaker' had real people's names. Because Kim Dae-jung was loved and admired by many in our country, I turned down the role. I told director Byun Sung-hyun I wanted Chang-dae's role instead, but he firmly declined. So I asked him to use fictional names instead of real name because it's not a biopic," he said during an interview with The Korea Times, Tuesday.
He recalled a nerve-wrecking moment when he presented the film to the late president's family. "We held a VIP screening a few days ago, and the late president's son came to watch our film. I was so nervous, I held down my head and avoided eye contact during the entire event. I later heard that he enjoyed the film," he added.
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| Actor Seol Kyung-gu in a scene from the film "Kingmaker" / Courtesy of Megabox Plus M |
Seol explained that portraying a real-life character in "Kingmaker" was much more difficult than that of "The Book of Fish," in which he plays scholar Jeong Yak-jeon, the brother of one of the leading scholars in the late Joseon era, Dasan Jeong Yak-yong.
"It wasn't easy because I didn't want to imitate him. I tried to see something in the quality of this man. There's a humanity and an unassuming decency about him which I tried to focus on," he said.
The 54-year-old actor also explained why he frequently collaborates with director Byun. The two worked on "The Merciless," "Kingmaker" and recently confirmed they will work together for the third time in Netflix thriller "Kill Boksoon."
"We built mutual trust while shooting 'The Merciless,' and I had the desire to reunite with the film crew once again. I play a small part in the upcoming 'Kill Boksoon,' but I thought it would be fun to take part in it," he said.
Seol completed a filibuster scene, memorizing all the lines. As it was impossible to gather a large crowd in the climactic scene, he put in extra effort to captivate the imaginary audience and deliver a killer speech.
"I was stressed out about the speech scene because it was just me talking endlessly about his lofty goals. I didn't know how to adjust the tone and manner of Woon-beom. I wasn't sure how it would look after blending with CGI (computer-generated imagery)," he said.
Seol also shared his unfiltered thoughts about winning awards.
"In the early stages of my career, I won numerous awards and was invited to many international film festivals. Back then, I took them for granted. It was after undergoing a slump for about 10 years that I realized how fortunate I was back in those days," he said.
"Kingmaker" will hit local theaters on Jan. 26.
