Between Sang Kang-ho and the Cannes Film Festival, it’s a great love story. The South Korean actor enjoyed a triumph there thanks to the Palme d’Or of Parasite by Bong Joon-ho before receiving an acting award last year for The Lucky Stars by Hirokazu Kore-eda. Here he is back this year for In the web of Kim Jee-woon in which he embodies a filmmaker a little too invested in the shooting of his film.
I was delighted that he granted me an interview which turned into a frenzy when a helicopter landed on the terrace where we were chatting.
The helicopter shot
The emblematic actor of South Korean cinema has, alas, no chance of winning a second interpretation prize, Kim Jee-woon’s film being presented out of competition, but he is not frustrated for all that. “I got it last year, so it’s fine,” he tells me, smiling as the helicopter gets closer and we hear each other less and less. The helicopter landed. Time for Sang Kang-ho to tell me that international success has not changed his life or his career. “I thought I was going to be offered lots of different things but, in fact, I don’t really see a difference. The helicopter takes off again and hovers. Forced to raise their voices.
“I think I would be able to put up with a filmmaker as difficult as the one I play in the film, but I’ve never met one so crazy,” he says. Kim Jee-woon, for example, is very laid back. “. His character, a filmmaker trying to impose himself in the Seoul of 1970, does not hesitate to put team and actors in danger to bring his project to life, the one which, he hopes, will finally make him recognized as a big name. of the 7th art.
The helicopter leaves. Ten seconds of calm. “I often choose my roles based on the director,” he admits. Kim Jee-woon and I debuted together. Under the terrace, someone empties a glass container. You would think you were in the middle of the bottles. And we burst out laughing. “I am preparing to shoot a series for the first time in my life, explains the actor, wiping his eyes. Before we start clucking like two chickens again. “This interview is so delirious that Kim Jee-woon could have put it in his film…, he comments, trying to regain his seriousness. Or maybe in the next “How nice!