JYJ’s Park Yoochun and Actor Park Yoohwan “It’s all thanks to hyung that I’ve fallen for acting”
“I’m very proud that dongsaeng is well-behaved”
“On acting, compared to hyung, I am still better (laugh)” (Park Yoohwan) “Yoohwan’s acting is more natural than mine. However, for emotional acting, he’s still far from me, haha.” (Park Yoochun)
Moving on from “Twinkle Twinkle”, rookie actor Park Yoohwan (20) that is currently acting in “A Thousand Days’ Promise” as the brother of the female lead who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, has debuted for only 9 months. He is also the younger brother of Park Yoochun (25), a JYJ member and the male lead of drama “Sungkyunkwan Scandal” (2010).
On the 29th of last month, I met Park Yoohwan at Gyeonggi-do’s SBS drama centre. At the same time, I had a phone interview with Park Yoochun who was in Hawaii for a photoshoot.
Yoohwan saying, “hyung is like a father to me,” and Yoochun saying, “donsaeng is very well-behaved, I am proud”. The sibling love between the brothers is not without a reason.
After emigrating to the United States in 1998, the young pair of brothers suffered from intolerable misery due to financial difficulties and from their parents’ divorce.
Especially for dongsaeng Yoohwan, after the hyung that he relied on left for Korea to pursue a career as a singer, he started to feel lost. “I couldn’t understand why I had to withstand all these by myself. Towards hyung whom left me behind, I felt resentful. There was nothing that I wanted to do, and I didn’t have the confidence to do things. I also had the thought of ‘what good will studying do’, so I didn’t attend school, high school.”
However, on the Yoohwan that was once like that, a dramatic turn of events occurred. “In order for hyung to film for ‘Sungkyunkwan Scandal’, he attended acting lessons. I happened to tag along for one of the lessons, and I ended up falling for acting as well.
Yoohwan said, “acting allowed me to find myself that was once lost back,” “gave me my first dream since I was born.” Hyung Yoochun said, “acting allowed the Yoohwan that was once gloomy and restless to be cheerful once more,” “In the past, no matter how much I asked him out for drinks, he wouldn’t come out. However, now, he takes the initiative to ask me out instead.”
The crying scene that took great pains to veil in “A Thousand Days’ Promise” where Yoohwan bawled and tightly held the hand of his sister whom refused treatment, received high praise from critics. Yoohwan’s unique emotional acting came from the “painful memories of childhood”, “after hyung debuted, he returned to the States occasionally, I looked at hyung as he slept and as I thought of how he would leave me again, I couldn’t help but keep crying. Remembering those days, even till now, I still feel sad.” He said, “the feelings towards noona in the drama and my feelings towards hyung is similar,” “I injected my feelings by imagining hyung as an Alzheimer’s patient.”
Each time Yoohwan reads the script, he would diligently seek advice from writer Kim Soo Hyun on how to act better. To correct his pronunciation, he would spend 30 minutes a day to read his script aloud. Towards a dongsaeng like this, hyung is proud but also slightly worried, “To study his role thoroughly, it has become common for him to burn the midnight oil. When he first started, I hoped he would be confident and start out slowly, but he does everything with all his might, which is worrying. Fortunately, he works out diligently as well, and thoroughly maintains himself.”
The book that Yoohwan likes to read recently is Michael Caine’s “Acting in Film – An Actors’ Take on Movie Making”*. “If you have thoughts of doing other things aside from acting, then just quickly give up on acting,”** this quote left a deep impression on me. Apart from acting, there is nothing else that I know how to, so there is nothing that would make me give up.” Hyung Yoochun said, “Although I am working with the responsibility of bringing home the bacon, I hope that Yoohwan will not be not burdened with the need to earn money and that he can act freely.”
(T/N Translator: *I’m not fully sure if this is the correct book.
** Again, I’m not sure of the exact quote…)
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