Sul Kyung-gu: “No words, no money, no faith in the world”... Possible Love [Interview]

[Financial News] Actor Sul Kyung-gu’s character Ho-seok in the film Possible Love is a laid-off worker who says little. Having lost his job and self-esteem, he is a tangle of guilt and shame, anger and inferiority. He knows he needs to open up, but doesn’t know where to begin. Sul thought that after the film ends, Ho-seok would face a slightly different kind of day.
That possibility comes into view over a drink shared with his wife, Mi-ok (played by Jeon Do-yeon), after a series of events. He used to drink in a corner of the kitchen; now he shares a drink with his wife on the wooden platform that symbolized his wounds, trading silly but warm jokes beneath the soft moonlight.
In an interview at a café in Samcheong-dong, Seoul, on the 9th, Sul Kyung-gu said, “If before it was about enduring and getting through each day, now it feels like living is possible,” adding, “It feels like carrying on somehow will be possible.”

Possible Love depicts the encounter between Ho-seok, a laid-off worker, and his wife Mi-ok (played by Jeon Do-yeon), as well as documentary filmmaker Ye-ji (played by CHO YEO JEONG), who is filming their lives, and her wealthy husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung). Sul Kyung-gu reunited with director Lee Chang-dong after Peppermint Candy and Oasis.
Sul did not approach Ho-seok as a character who had to show something. Instead, he kept filming while thinking about what Ho-seok had lost. “He has no words, no money, no self-esteem, no place in his family, and no faith in the world,” he said. “I filmed with those things in mind. I never felt that I had to show anything.”
Ho-seok, who cannot bring himself to speak even at counseling sessions for laid-off workers, finally opens up in front of Ye-ji’s camera. Sul saw the reason for that change in Ye-ji’s sincerity.

“I think Ye-ji’s sincerity reached him,” he said. “Even if it was love driven by some purpose, I think it reached me because it was sincere.” He also described Ye-ji as a third party who listens to what he says rather than judging it.
The anguished outburst in the valley in the latter part of the film was not easy to pull off. It is the moment when emotions held in for far too long pour out through the body. It couldn’t be just physical flailing; the emotion had to reach the audience. But because of the shooting schedule, the scene was filmed early on. He later recounted, “It was difficult to reach that moment when the emotions hadn’t built up enough. In the end, we filmed it again toward the end of production.”

At the end of the film, Ho-seok and Mi-ok sit on the wooden platform in the yard and look at the moon together. The scene affirms their presence in each other’s lives, but for Sul Kyung-gu, the loneliness came through as strongly as the hope.
“There may be hope, but I felt a little sad,” he said. “They’ve been through a lot, but nothing has improved, and they can’t get back what they’ve lost. I also worried about how they would carry on living.”
Even so, knowing that someone remains by your side and sees the same world as you is a comfort. Sul said he found a kind of love different from that of youth in the sight of the two sitting on the wooden platform, drinking and looking at the moon. “This may be all there is, but I thought perhaps another kind of love could still be possible,” he said.
The emotions that had built up in him also led him to tears after he watched the film at the Venice International Film Festival. At the technical screening, he couldn’t fully watch the film because he was focused on his own performance, but he said that in Venice the story finally reached him.
“Looking at the moon, I felt strange. I started crying, and when the subtitles came up and applause broke out, I couldn’t calm down,” he recalled. “I was really grateful that Zo In-sung cried alongside me.”



Sul Kyung-gu and Jeon Do-yeon have worked together on four feature films, beginning with I Wish I Had a Wife (2001), followed by Birthday (2019) and Kill Boksoon (2023), and now Possible Love (2026). Including director Lee Chang-dong’s short film Heartbeat (2022), this was their fifth time working together.
In the film, too, Ho-seok has no choice but to rely on his wife, Mi-ok, both emotionally and financially. At the same time, she is the person who makes him feel guilty for hurting her. Sul said of Jeon Do-yeon, who plays Mi-ok, “She still seems like an actor with so much ahead of her, so much left to draw out,” adding, “I really liked her makeup-free face.”
Reuniting with Lee gave him time to reflect on himself as an actor. Sul Kyung-gu made a name for himself in Chungmuro with the director’s early film Peppermint Candy (2000), and cemented his reputation as a skilled actor with Oasis (2002).
Sul said that during their earlier work together, he had to deal every day with emotions that were difficult to bear, and even felt guilty that he couldn’t deliver what the director wanted. But as time passed, he began to miss the set, where something took shape day by day and he himself felt increasingly enriched.
Speaking about Lee’s directing, he said, “He doesn’t let you express it. He tells you just to feel it,” adding, “I think he wants things to keep building, even if they aren’t immediately obvious.”
This time, the set was much more enjoyable and comfortable than before. That did not mean that the tension he felt as an actor had disappeared. Sul described Lee as “someone who is like a mentor to me in cinematic terms” and said he hoped to work with him again.
“I did it thinking I’d like to work together just one more time, but once it was over, I wanted to do it one more time again,” he said. “I don’t feel at ease on set, but he seems to have that kind of magic.”

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