"I Was Too Scared to Watch It" – Park Ji-hoon's Trembling Lips in the Film "The Man Who Lives With the King" [Interview]

[Financial News] Actor Park Ji-hoon, who plays Danjong Yi Hong-wi in the film "The Man Who Lives With the King," which surpassed 2 million moviegoers on the 12th day of its release, shared behind-the-scenes stories about key scenes in the movie.
Set in 1457 in Cheongnyeongpo, the film follows a village head (Yoo Hae-jin) who voluntarily goes into exile to revive his village, and a young former king who has been dethroned and banished.

Park Ji-hoon's first priority was to lose weight. He wanted Danjong to look not just like a thin boy, but like someone "reduced to skin and bones." After he was cast, he shut himself in his room for about two to three months, barely eating proper meals and repeatedly reading the script, losing around 15 kilograms in the process. He joked that he had gained a lot of weight during what he called his "off-season." Even on set, he nibbled on jelly and chocolate to maintain a physically and mentally depleted state.
Ahead of the film's release, Park Ji-hoon met with reporters at a café in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul. "I didn’t want to portray him as a weak king," he explained. "I wanted to show someone who, because he became king at such a young age, had to suppress his emotions and live that way." He added, "At first, I spoke with a breathy voice, and as time passed, I shifted to a voice coming up from my core. I planned that progression from the start."
Filming while hungry was not easy. In scenes where he had to eat, his body rejected the food and he felt nauseous. He recalled that he felt briefly better when he ate freshwater snail soup, which is quite salty. It is the very dish that, in the film, Yoo Hae-jin’s character boasts about making with snails he caught himself.
Park Ji-hoon laughed as he said, "If I hadn’t taken this role, I probably would have eaten a big bowl of rice with that side dish."

In the scene where he confronts Han Myeong-hoe, played by Yoo Ji-tae, he has to express a complex mix of emotions: fear and terror toward the most powerful figure of the time, humiliation and resentment, and the last shred of pride he holds as king.
Recalling the shoot, he admitted, "The moment Yoo Ji-tae walked toward me, I couldn’t keep my eyes on him properly."
"I was honestly too scared to look at him. When I told the director I was afraid, he said to just use that feeling as it was."
The trembling of his lips and facial muscles captured on screen was not something he had planned. It was his body’s real reaction under extreme tension and after significant weight loss. "My body was so weakened that even the slightest tremor showed more clearly," he said. "Even though he’s young, I wanted to make sure the audience could still see him as a legitimate king."
He picked the film’s climactic scene as the most difficult to shoot. Rather than preparing a specific emotion in advance, he focused on his chemistry with Yoo Hae-jin on set that day. The crew also sensed the gravity of the moment and moved with extreme caution, and a heavy silence settled over the set.
Park Ji-hoon said, "The moment I grabbed the rope, it wasn’t my body that hurt, but something inside my body." He continued, "I thought maybe, just a little, I had gotten closer to the emotions that the real historical figure might have felt."
Park Ji-hoon expressed deep satisfaction with this project and his work in it. "As an actor, I hope this becomes an opportunity to show a new side of myself," he said. "But more than anything, it will remain a project where I met wonderful seniors and a great director. I’ve already gained so much from it," he added with a smile.

jashin@fnnews.com Shin Jin-ah Reporter