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[News] 130529 Lee Hongki worried about his first movie (Interview)
“I’m nervous. I’m really very nervous. If this movie doesn’t do well at the box office, I’m going to think that it’s my fault. I feel a great pressure and I’m worried too.”
FTISLAND’s vocal Lee Hongki expressed his worries for his first screen debut movie “Passionate Goodbye” at a recent meetup with him at Euljiro. His movie is slated for release on 30 May.
Lee Hongki started his career as a child actor before he became a singer. In the movie, he plays the character of “Choong Ee”, an idol star who gets caught up in an assault case and landed himself in a hospice doing community service.
Not knowing anything about hospice, he rejected the script initially.
“I like to act according to my own experience. I didn’t know anything about hospice, so I’m worried how it will turn out. But my company said, ‘You’ll regret. Look at it once again.’ So I did some research on hospice and read the script again. I read till the end and it made me feel sad. Whatever the outcome is, I think that it’ll be meaningful to me.”
Even though he’s acting an idol star of his age, it wasn’t easy playing Choong Ee, whom according to the director, “is kind at heart but changed due his social surroundings because he had no choice.”
“This is a rebellious character. He is slightly over and likes to pick on things. He became more sensible towards the middle and final part of the movie. Our director told me to balance out the character. But it was really tough. Even though he picks on things, you can’t bring yourself to hate him.”
In the movie, besides singing, Choong Ee is also good at playing the drums, keyboard, bass and other instruments.
“Though I’ve watched and learned a lot during my 8 years in a band, I haven’t had much hands-on experience so I practised a lot. People ask, ‘Lee Hongki is in a band, obviously he should be able to do it, isn’t that so?’ I practised at home and also learned from our members.”
Though it’s a movie about the daily lives of terminally-ill patients who are waiting for death, the atmosphere at the filming set was always cheerful.
“Firstly, I made the filming set like my home. It became extremely noisy because of me. Even during the serious scenes with Baek Jinhee, we fooled around a lot too. They even had NG scenes because of my snores at the ward beside the filming set. (laughs)”
The filming set was located in a vicinity of a milk cow ranch and they had the chance to taste the fresh milk and cheese there. But they also had many NG scenes when the cows let out cries.
Senior actors like Ma Dong Seok and Im Won Hee, who played terminally-ill patients in the movie, always showed consideration for Lee Hongki who was busy with activities in Japan during that period of time.
“Hyungs really treated me well. They tried to make me stand out even more and told me to do whatever I wanted to. They took great care of me too. I’m really grateful.”
How similar is Choong Ee and Lee Hongki in reality?
“Choong Ee is kinder and more innocent than me. I think I’m not as sensible as him yet. I’m not as matured as Choong Ee on both the inside and outside.”
But Lee Hongki also matured by another level after the filming of this movie.
“If I want to live a better life without any regrets, I will have to work even harder on things which I didn’t do and showed persistence in last time. I have to improve and develop myself even further, that’s what I thought.”
With regard to the variety programmes which he didn’t like to appear on as well as previous magazine interviews, he said that “I will not complain about this” in future.
“I have been thinking, ‘I like to sing but why can’t I just do the things I like?’ I’ve made up my mind to change this thinking using this opportunity. In this way, I can then do the things I want.”
The background of this movie is set in a hospice and he also had some thoughts about death.
“There is a distorted meaning about hospice in our country. But I heard this during the filming, that people who are suffering and don’t want to live their lives this way, choose to stay at a hospice themselves. A place where they can spend their last moments in comfort. There is just one thing I thought about death, that I don’t want to die in pain. I want to die comfortably.”
The day before the interview was the death anniversary of Lee Hongki’s close friend from his middle school.
“I debuted in my high school days. My friend died in a motorbike accident on the day of our showcase. Half of our group of friends attended his wake and the other half came to watch our concert. They were worried that I couldn’t sing well so they only told me the sad news after the concert. I stayed at the funeral parlour for about two days.”
Lee Hongki said, “Probably after watching the movie, you will take even better care of the people around you. I wish we had the chance to look back at our lives once again.”
What is in Lee Hongki’s bucket list?
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