'First Man' Park Geon-il: "Senior Lee Hyo-jeong, whom I met in a Dongguk University class, recognized me right away" [Interview ②]

*This content was translated by AI.

Actor Park Geon-il revealed that it was surprising to meet actress Lee Hyo-jeong again in 'First Man', after having met her during a class at Dongguk University.

Recently, Park Geon-il held an interview with StarNews regarding the MBC daily drama 'First Man' (directed by Kang Tae-heum, written by Seo Hyun-ju and Ahn Jin-young).

'First Man' is a drama depicting the fatal confrontation between a woman who lived another person's life for revenge and a woman who stole another person's life for desire. It is part of writer Seo Hyun-ju's 'Number Series', following 'Second Husband' and 'Third Marriage'. Director Kang Tae-heum, known for 'Kindly Mr. Sun', 'Third Marriage', and 'The Witch's Game', reunited for this project.

In the drama, Park Geon-il plays Kang Jun-ho, a restaurant head chef who was once a Michelin three-star winner. After meeting Oh Jang-mi, he shows the first time in his life that he loves someone with all his heart. Kang Jun-ho becomes a living embodiment of jealousy upon learning that his half-brother, Kang Baek-ho (played by Yoon Seon-woo), also loves Oh Jang-mi. He later suffers greatly after discovering too late that Chae Hwa-young (played by Oh Hyun-kyung), the owner of Dream Hotel where he worked, was his biological mother. In order to protect Oh Jang-mi, Kang Jun-ho jumps into a car that Chae Hwa-young had driven to kill her and dies in the process.

Park Geon-il recalled memorable reactions to his portrayal of Kang Jun-ho: "I remember people saying, 'That guy has a good-guy face but is playing a villain,' and 'Like Judge Lee Han-young before, he's playing a villain again this time.' I wanted to be told this time that 'you acted well' until the very end, so I tried my best to carry the character through. Senior Lee Hyo-jeong also said in the latter half of the drama, 'You've really got it now. You did well and I'm proud.' That made me happy. When I was a fourth-year student in the Theater and Film Department at Dongguk University, I took her 'Audition Technique' class, and she recognized me right away while working on this project."

Park Geon-il interpreted the Kang Jun-ho character as someone born from 'lack'. He said, "Jun-ho had a sense of lack from the beginning, abandoned by a villainess. Although he appeared as a Michelin three-star chef who studied abroad in the U.S., he tried to gain recognition through cooking because he hadn't received love. He struggled with it. His perfectionism was also an attempt to hide his sense of lack. You can see the Kang Jun-ho character when watching Christian Bale's role in the film 'American Psycho'. There was a scene where I had a full-blown argument with senior Oh Hyun-kyung early on, which was completely opposite to my real personality. Viewers even picked me as the character with the most severe 'character collapse'."

Kang Jun-ho was a first-place winner in an American cooking competition and a Michelin three-star chef. When asked if there were any referenced content or role models such as 'Black and White Chef Lisa', he replied, "The director recommended watching how Chef Ahn Sung-jae speaks like T. I based my performance on Chef Kang Leo from 'MasterChef Korea'. I referred to a scene where Chef Kang Leo, while wiping his mouth, spoke warmly in his heart when talking to Chef Choi Kang-rok."

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*This content was translated by AI.