The first week of July. It’s time for the healthy youth Donghae to meet the evening television audiences. The curtains have drawn on the KBS 1TV daily drama “Smile Donghae” that drew a viewership of more than 40% that one can only dream of. We met up with actor Ji Chang Wook (age 24) who says that he is “sad to part with Donghae”.
Intense Attraction: “Thrill Me” Ji Chang Wook and Kim Ha Neul
After its first staging in 2007, “Thrill Me” returns for the fourth time this year. We met up with the two people closest to the lead characters. It’s not simply because they are of the same age as their characters in the musical, but because of their very powerful look of confidence at having made it to the stage, and the wavering look of uncertainty in their eyes about their unforeseeable future. Now at the time where we look at them anew, stands Ji Chang Wook and Kim Ha Neul.
Note: Actor Kang Ha Neul’s birth name is Kim Ha Neul (not to be confused with the actress who shares the same name). Kang Ha Neul is his current stage name.
“I do not wish to lie to audiences. Pretending to be angry when I’m not, smiling when I’m not enjoying myself… I really do not wish to do that. But that is very difficult.”
Is it his dream to become an actor who does not lie? A rookie actor whom we met at a coffee shop recently revealed a rather unusual acting mindset. But this rookie does not have a role model either. He is none other than Ji Chang Wook who played the role of a reporter with a unique personality in the MBC drama “Hero” that ended last month.
While Ji Chang Wook is busy protecting his country, we at The Kitchen will be taking a walk down memory lane to translate some of his older interviews that we didn’t manage to cover. Many were published before this site was launched, while there are other recent ones that we may have left out due to a lack of time. In conjunction with his debut anniversary, we thought it would be proper to publish one of Ji Chang Wook’s very first interviews he had with the press when he was just a rookie actor. It’d be fun to see how much he has grown over the years, and how he has still remained quite the same in some aspects. Enjoy the read!
On 18 July, Ji Chang Wook met with reporters at the Sky Farm restaurant on the 50th floor of the FKI Tower in Yeouido, Seoul, where he expressed his opinions about his recently-ended drama “Suspicious Partner” and his upcoming military enlistment. Since many of the news reports were quite repetitive, the following is a compilation of several press interviews released that day.
