[Dispatch | Busan=Reporter Jung Tae-yoon] "I didn't know I'd give myself a gift. I'm a bad owner." (Ryu Seung-ryong)
Actor Ryu Seung-ryong was always running. Born in 1970, he belonged to the most populous generation. Competition was everyday life. He believed that falling behind meant the end, and he knew nothing but to keep running.
There was also a strong compulsion that standing still meant being pushed aside. While working part-time jobs, he learned ballet, Korean dance, and piano. He learned anything that might help his acting.
He was afraid of an unseen future, and he had to worry about making a living. He got married, started making films, received love, and his sense of responsibility grew.
That's how he passed fifty. He said, "I pushed and urged myself forward. I lived without regret, but I should have soothed myself and refueled myself. Only now am I spending time giving myself gifts."
Ryu Seung-ryong took center stage on the 9th at Actors House, held in Udong, Haeundae-gu, Busan in the afternoon. He retraced his acting life.
# My heart raced
It started in middle school. By chance, he saw the play "Faust" at the National Theater. It was a difficult work, but the scenes were imprinted in his head like stills.
He said, "I remember my heart racing like a child watching 'Cinema Paradiso.' In high school, I enrolled in a school with a theater club and nurtured my dream."
Wanting to study more deeply, he also majored in theater at university. He recalled, "I didn't stop acting even in the military. I stood on the stage of the performance 'Nanta' for a long time."
He turned his attention to film in the 1990s. It was a time when auteur films like "Send You to Me," "The Day a Pig Fell into the Well," and "Green Fish" were pouring out.
Ryu Seung-ryong said, "I thought I could share my thoughts through film as well, not just theater" and "Being able to convey delicate breathing, eye light, and trembling was different from theater."
# "If you dig deeper, the real thing comes out"
In 2004, he became recognized on screen as a masked robber in "The Woman I Know." Early on, he was cast according to his exotic appearance.
Ryu Seung-ryong said, "Only strong roles came in. There was conflict until I showed that 'I can act like this too,'" and "During that time, I tried to understand various characters through direct and indirect experience."
In the 2010s, he became known as a prolific actor. While filming the movie "Asura," another concern came to him.
He said, "Even though I was working on projects I wanted to do, I felt so exhausted from doing so many projects" and "I consulted with director Lee Joon-ik, saying 'I feel too drained.'"
"I can't forget what director Lee Joon-ik said then. 'Seung-ryong, digging the earth hurts your fingers. But if you dig deeper, clear water comes out. Acting is the same. If you dig deeper, the real essence comes out.'"
That became an engine. In "Everything About My Wife," he tried not to be trapped in a frame, and in "Masquerade," he removed other things and put in sincerity.
# If I don't believe in it, who will
In "Miracle in Cell No. 7," Ryu Seung-ryong played a father with firm emotions and convictions about his daughter, but an intellectually disabled person who finds it difficult to express that physically.
With the concern that it could become a caricature, how did he pull it off? He said, "At that time, director Jang Jin's words became my standard. He said that when drunk acting, if I get buried in it and the content I'm trying to convey gets lost, that won't do."
He continued, "The image of a father who loves his daughter more than life had to sit heavily at the core. The rest was circumstance and setting, I thought, and I acted accordingly."
In the Netflix series "Yakitori" and the film "Amazon Metaquel," he had to be funny. The skills—the twists, breathing, silence—weren't easy. A little more would be excessive, a little less would be flat.
He said, "Good comedy is a well-constructed structure and acting with sincerity" and "I really believed my daughter became yakitori and acted. If I don't believe it, how can I persuade the audience?"
# Not the same tears
Ryu Seung-ryong freely moves between comedy and tragedy. The face was most clearly shown in Disney+ "Moving." Episode 13, where Jang Joo-won (played by Ryu Seung-ryong) weeps after losing his wife.
He said, "Actually, I didn't want to do crying scenes for a while. When you weep over losing a loved one, the expression always looks the same. But that scene was different. I wanted to express that 'an ox-like cry comes before Jang Joo-won.'"
This scene was held like something ailing and filmed almost at the end. The reference for the cry was his father. He remembered his father's face from 13 years ago when his older sister passed away first.
Ryu Seung-ryong said, "My father was strict and mountain-like to me. The way he wept after losing his daughter was exactly like that" and "My father also said he cried a lot watching that scene in 'Moving.'"
# Fathers of all kinds
Ryu Seung-ryong won the Grand Prize at the Baeksang Arts Awards for JTBC's "The Story of Mr. Kim, a Department Head Working at a Large Corporation in Seoul." Until the day before, he received the Best Male Acting Award in the International Competition category at the 21st Seoul Drama Awards and returned to Busan.
Besides "Mr. Kim," he has played numerous fathers in works like "Miracle in Cell No. 7," "Psychokinesis," and "Moving." It's an adjective easily trapped in the same frame, but he actually found freedom there.
"Because I did a historical drama, so something different. Because I did a dad role, so this. I try not to do that. Actually, fathers come in all types, don't they? The essence of each person is really different. I found tremendous freedom from there."
Ryu Seung-ryong was invited to the 31st Busan International Film Festival with "Jung-ga-ne" (director Kim Ji-hyun), which was invited to "Korean Cinema Today - Special Premiere."
"Jung-ga-ne" depicts a story about enemy-like brothers who have lived for 30 years without a single word exchanged, uniting as if by fate to protect a newborn calf amid a crisis that sweeps over the village.
He introduced it by saying, "Isn't there a silence that occurs when trust is broken between those who are close? It's a work where that comes across just as an image without detailed explanation."
He kept running without pause. Now he knows how to give himself gifts.
He said, "I started walking Jeju Olle Trail. The sounds of nature, my breathing, the feeling of sweat beading up…. Focusing on myself felt like giving myself a gift. I feel healed after I empty myself."
His goals for the remaining acting life are clear. He added, "I learned a lot by working on various projects. My goal for the rest of my acting life is to ask questions through my work and become a bridge connecting the older and younger generations."
<Photo=Reporter Song Hyo-jin>
