Park Seo Joon recently shared candid stories from his pre-debut years, expressing deep gratitude to Kim Soo Hyun for helping him get his foot in the door of the entertainment industry. The actor appeared on artist Jung Jae Hyung’s YouTube channel “Fairy Jaehyung” on October 13th, where he reflected on his early struggles and decision to enlist in the military.
“I had nothing—no connections at all,” Park admitted. “I was a black spoon, as they say on ‘Culinary Class Wars,'” referring to the hit Netflix cooking show.
He then opened up about the role Kim Soo Hyun played in jumpstarting his career. “A friend of mine knew Kim Soo Hyun, and he introduced me to his agency. Kim Soo Hyun was kind enough to connect me with them.”
Recalling his first encounter with the agency, Park shared, “As soon as I got there, they started talking about contracts. The CEO was really confident, telling me it was a standard contract and that I could consult a lawyer if I felt uncertain. At the time, I didn’t know anything about how agencies worked. Looking back, it was actually a pretty big company.”
Park joined KeyEast through this connection, but even with the right agency, he confessed that opportunities were scarce in the beginning. “It was tough as a rookie actor. The major broadcast networks were everything back then, and there weren’t many productions. Even getting an audition was rare, and when one did come up, hundreds or even thousands of people would show up.”
The actor also talked about the challenges of building friendships in the industry. “There aren’t many actors my age. And with male actors, I rarely get to meet them if we’re working on different projects. I’ve run into female actors more often, though. You need to work on the same projects to really get to know each other, but even then, they’re just people you met at work, so it’s hard to get truly close.”
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