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Siwan talks to Marie Claire Korea on Emergency Declaration

Im Si-wan, an actor who breaks away from the typical villain + Siwan's Narrative

Translated (using Google translate) from two articles on Marie Claire Korea - narrative & breakaway.


Thinking, having courage, thinking again.

Im Si-wan's narrative built up while thinking about movies, characters, and himself.


My hair is pretty long. Have you ever grown up to this level before? Even in the movie <The Attorney>, it was this length, but back then, it was closer to a ponytail. (Laughs) Other than that, it was the first time. Even after serving in the military, I kept sticking to my short hairstyle.


How about it? Some people change their movements or other styles as their appearance changes. I haven't noticed any change other than the fact that washing and drying my hair takes longer than before.

I tend to approach it thoroughly and functionally. (Laughs) I think so. I'm not very interested in hairstyles. (Laughs)


I think the viewers were quite impressed. It's surprising that an actor with such a gentle face is the villain 'Ryu Jin-seok' in the movie <Emergency Declaration>. He had no computational idea that he could achieve a radical image transformation. Even so, there are a lot of people who are quite surprised by the result. I've heard quite a few such reactions when greeting on stage. Once at the premiere, when I was about to say hello, someone said, 'Bad bastard!' and shouted. (Laughs).



Even if there was no calculation for transformation, I think there was a point where I was worried because of the gap between the figure I have and the evil that Jin-seok Ryu shows. I was worried about the gap. In any case, when the roles I had previously played were divided into good and bad roles in a dichotomous manner, good roles were more important in proportion. The image I have as an actor now must have been influenced by the role of a good person. So, I focused on making Ryu Jin-seok more effective. Rather than narrowing the gap, I thought about how to bring the gap itself to a better portrayal of this character.


What methods have you tried? After much deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that I am not doing anything wrong. Should it be said that he did not follow the typical villain? So, instead of following the expressions, tone, and actions that you would easily think of as a villain, I came to the conclusion that it could be more effective if I just do it in my own style.


As a spectator, I was certainly surprised and shocked at that point. There is no character that one would normally guess when playing a villain, and there is no particular narrative. Ryu Jin-seok's evil deeds seem like simple acts to solve a certain mission. But as an actor, I wonder if there is a narrative drawn to understand this character. The story isn't very complicated. First of all, being fluent in English means living in an English living area, and if you belonged to the mainstream within that, it probably wasn't. Because he was a culturally and economically marginalized class, he must have lived a life that somehow felt embarrassed. You may also have been bullied by people who don't have a good mindset in that group. As a result, a sense of victimization would have gradually accumulated. I created a warrior to somehow reach that consciousness of damage. As I spend more time alone like that, I naturally come into contact with media, and in that, I see something that amplifies my hatred of someone. And the distorted hatred would have grown more and more.


You're just rationalizing your own hate. Yes. At the same time, he must have come to the point of thinking that such an existence is a social evil, and now he decides to act on his own. I thought that Ryu Jin-seok's crimes stemmed from his own conclusion that he had to perform a sacred ritual of purification.


“After much deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that I am not going to do anything. Shouldn't it be said that he didn't follow the villain's typicality?"

How amazing. Usually, when you delve into a certain person, you tend to fall in love with them without realizing it. But when I just mentioned Ryu Jin-seok's narrative, I got the feeling he was distanced from him. If I wanted to build sympathy with this character, I wouldn't have even approached it in the first place. In fact, all the stories I've been telling you right now are plausible nonsense. (Laughs) I didn't have the confidence to empathize with this nonsense, so I just set a certain situation and made it based on it. I think profiling would be a more appropriate expression. It was a process that I understood but did not approach emotionally.


What did you think of Ryu Jin-seok who made it like that? I think there was a point where I was satisfied with myself. I just looked sad. It was filmed two years ago. Since then, my values ​​for acting have changed, and it is still changing. Perhaps because of that, my acting at that time seemed awkward, and only the shortcomings stood out.


Can I praise myself a little bit? You must be getting praise from the audience for your acting. Of course, there is a sense of relief. Still, I think it's a good thing that so many people take good care of me. I don't think I'm satisfied just because I've been praised because it's a period of growing up where I continue to establish my values ​​for acting.


"I don't think I'm satisfied just because I've been praised because I'm growing up to continue to establish my values ​​for acting."

In an interview with Marie Claire last year, actress Kim So-jin left behind a story that after <Emergency Declaration> ended, her body and mind hurt so much that she did not want to do a disaster movie anymore. I wonder if she would have left a different mind for the actor who played the character who caused the disaster. It's hard to clean up, but not hard to mess around with. When the director gave me a direction to 'just mess around with it, I would say, 'I understand. I'm going to mess it up. Then they die very coolly. (Laughs) I didn't shoot because I was having a relatively hard time, both emotionally and physically. So I don't think there will be any reluctance to do another disaster movie. I think we can do more for now.


Maybe the villain doesn't fit his constitution? (Laughs) Isn't it a matter of quantity? (Laughter) Because it's not so much that it makes you feel like you're having a hard time.

Wasn't it sad? Don't you want to mess around a little more? I don't have a lot of regrets. If she had a lot of content, she would have felt rather burdened, and I would have wondered if the bottom line was revealed among the actors who had a lot of pressure. I think it was very desirable to hit and fall like this.


Just 10 years have passed since the first movie <The Attorney> until <Declaration of Emergency>. Can you feel the passage of time? I don't feel it much. Of course, each one is a precious memory. But I think this feeling, which doesn't seem like 10 years have passed, is the problem. In general, 10 years is a very long time. Then, as someone who has only explored one thing, it is not so when I think about whether I am a person who can clearly define 'this should be like this' after becoming an expert. So, this is a very difficult time for me. For my greed, I think it would be more comfortable to say that I did it for about 5 or 6 years, excluding the two years I went to the military, the time when I was in parallel with music, and the time when I was worried about not doing any work. (Laughs)


I won the Rookie of the Year award at the Marie Claire Film Festival for my first film <The Attorney>. Looking at the story I had at that time, he said that appearing in <The Attorney> was courage.


Do you still treat each piece with courage? Big or small, I think I'm always paying. It's not always just the sites that fall into the categories I expected. At some point, there are times when the scenes that we have to take pictures of today are so burdensome that they hang around our necks. Sometimes you want to avoid it. But whether you are mentally ready or not, you have to do something when you stand in front of the camera. Every time that happens, I live with courage, big and small. And for that moment, I think it's a series of challenges that constantly memorize spells in my mind.


Are you more courageous now than before? Less rejection. It's because I've seen those moments countless times. It's because even the difficult homework things like 'I really can't do it' are somehow done again when I look back over time. It wasn't done, it was done. By repeating this process, it seems to have become more flexible.



Wouldn't it be okay if I couldn't define it? In fact , it is up to each person's intuition to decide whether or not it's a good piece of work. Yes. But I am of this kind. Even if you are not engaged in film, not everyone will watch movies for leisure. And it's going to be evaluated as 'fun' or 'it's no big deal'. The problem is that the evaluation and the evaluation I make will not be very different. That's why I'm not an expert. So I still have that homework and try to figure out which is a really good movie and which is good acting, but I haven't found a clear and sharp answer.


Although I still have difficult homework, I confessed many times that I love the job itself. What is the joy of this job? That work can not be done as work? That's the best. Watching dramas or movies can be a leisurely activity for some, but it can be a productive time for me, who has made acting a career. In a nutshell, there are times when I like to feel like I am going on a trip when I go to a local area to shoot.


It's a little more joy than I thought. Satisfaction with work seems to be created by accumulating small pleasures in the end.

On the other hand, what are the sorrows or hardships you experience in doing this? Do you think it shouldn't be too much? It's like any field, but I think luck has a lot to do with this, especially in this job. Success or failure is not something that an actor can determine through his or her efforts. Also, getting a selection for work is not something that can be done with effort. There are highs and lows, but it will not be easy to withstand the feeling of deprivation you feel at the lows. I think I need to be a little more resolute because the force I put in and the results I get are not clearly calculated in quantitative numbers. I don't want to get too caught up in doing what I love for a long time.


If we can produce quantitative results, can we eliminate the suffering of this work? If that were the case, maybe I would have gone to an acting academy all day and night. (Laughs) It would have been if the results were as complete as the time I studied math, but that’s not the case, so I’m just doing the best I can.


The best I can do is to make a choice that leaves no regrets carefully and to act without deceiving myself.

Best not to deceive yourself. Isn't that a virtue necessary for everything? Right. He's trying to refrain from pretending he's not there. I think that kind of attitude is the basic of the basics. Acting as if you do not have one is deceiving yourself. It will soon be a day to deceive even those who see it. I want to act honestly.




To be applauded again was the most thrilling moment of my life.

Here's Behind The Scenes of the photoshoot for Marie Clair.




Here's another article with Siwan's thoughts on the role.



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