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| Kim Jae-wook / Courtesy of Better Ent |
By Park Jin-hai
Kim Jae-wook, who portrayed the villainous psychopathic heir of a chaebol in the recently ended OCN thriller "Voice," said he is content with his acting.
"In hindsight, I think that I didn't overdo it in playing the role of Mo (Tae-gu)," Kim said during an interview with The Korea Times in a Seoul cafe Tuesday. "Instead of working up to make the role fancier and stand out from the others, I thought I finished it fine-cut, without frills,"
In the crime thriller, which tells the story of a "Golden Time" team chasing serial killers, the model-turned-actor has been credited for his depiction of cold-blooded psychopathic killer Mo Tae-gu, who doesn't flinch and calmly wields iron balls to crush his victims, crucifies an old woman who tipped off police and keeps victims' organs in a refrigerator.
Although the character was evil, Kim is featured in a suit. He stole every scene as a psychopathic killer who is spine-chilling and grotesque but sexy at the same time. "The writer wanted Mo as an elegant man with a high-class attitude _ a person who not only murders ruthlessly but also has a grotesque beauty," Kim said.
The OCN thriller, despite controversies over its violence, succeeded in creating extreme tension for viewers and it closed with the cable channel's highest viewership rating of 5.7 percent.
Kim, 33, who debuted in 2002 with "Ruler of Your Own World" and started earning recognition from his role in "The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince," has been the biggest beneficiary of the drama, emerging as one of the hottest actors.
Kim said he took some reference from Christian Bale of "American Psycho" and the role was hard physically and emotionally. "Killing scenes were hard," he said. "When Mo made the victim walk around barefoot on broken glass before he hammered him like he was playing a game, my body showed a strong reaction. My hands shook and the heart beat faster, and even after the director said ‘cut,' my body continued to tremble."
Shooting the scene of killing an old woman was the most emotionally taxing. "The lines (of the scene) were strong and the mood in the victim's house, where she gets crucified, was strong. Mo, who looks like one from a noble class, comes out of his upscale house and turns up at the victim's place, where he doesn't seem to fit at all. As if he just dropped into a convenience store or cafe, he kills his victim easily. Thinking of the full radius of his actions, walking on the two extreme edges, it felt very strong to me."
In the end, Mo is murdered at a mental institution, at the hands of a psychopathic doctor. Kim said he liked the ending.
"We shot the scene with a purpose," he said. "The drama's director, writer and I all had agreed that Mo should not have a halfway ending. The devil should perish for good. Getting arrested and locked up in a mental hospital would not have given the kind of relief all our viewers wanted. So we mixed it with some fantasy elements; he should have that ending."
Kim, who has appeared in many non-commercial movies, including "Another Way," dealing with life and death, said he wants to be an actor whose next move makes viewers curious, in any project or character.
"Most of the commercial films have offered me roles that I performed in my 20s. As an actor, I don't live on consuming the image that I've built on," Kim said. "I don't insist on art movies, but when I have to choose, I tend to choose the ones that trigger my curiosity and that I feel that I can do well. Since I love acting, when I play such roles in such projects, I feel satisfied and am convinced that I'm going the way I truly love."
As one of his latest ventures, he recently participated in a Korea-Japan joint project, where he had to act in Japanese. "It was an interesting experience. Only the director and I were Koreans, the others were all Japanese. It is my first full Japanese-language movie and will be released this year. I'm very much excited about it," Kim said.
