Ji Chang Wook opened up about playing Joseon’s most notorious womanizer in Netflix’s The Scandal in a new interview with ELLE Korea.
The actor recently posed for the magazine’s October issue in a pictorial themed around “Ji Chang Wook’s Night,” capturing different sides of him ranging from cool and sharp to warm and sensual.
Speaking about Jo Won, his character in The Scandal, Ji said he deliberately avoided playing up his reputation as a seducer.
“I didn’t want to exaggerate or add anything to make him seem more like a womanizer. I wanted that side of him to come through naturally in his attitude and behavior,” he said. “Jo Won is a complicated and difficult man. You can never quite tell what he’s thinking till the end, which made him both fun and challenging to portray. I had a lot of conversations with director Jung Ji Woo as we developed the character.”
Asked how much he resembles Jo Won, Ji said, “Since I’m the one portraying him, there are inevitably little pieces of Ji Chang Wook mixed into every moment.”
Ji also teased Jo Won’s charged encounters with Lady Cho, played by Son Ye Jin.
“There’s not a single scene between the two where the tension lets up. Every moment is packed with it,” he said. “We put a lot of work into rehearsals, and I think viewers will be able to feel how carefully that tension between them was crafted.”
Having moved between noir, action, romance and historical dramas throughout his career, Ji said acting has only become more difficult over time.
“It’s getting harder because acting isn’t something that’s easy to define in a single sentence,” he said. “I rely a lot on the people around me – the director, cinematography, lighting, costumes, makeup and even the space I’m standing in. I try to move between genres, but that doesn’t mean I can become a completely different person. In the end, acting is about receiving help from other people. Maybe an actor’s ability lies in knowing how to make good use of that help.”
He added that some of his most rewarding moments come when that collaboration produces a great scene and he gets to share the excitement with the rest of the team.
Off set, Ji described his life these days as surprisingly uneventful.
“My daily life is actually pretty boring and repetitive these days. Sometimes even I find it dull,” he said. “But fortunately, the career I chose is still incredibly fun for me. I want to keep moving forward, step by step, toward the standards I’ve set for myself.”
>> ‘The Scandal’ Review: Son Ye Jin and Ji Chang Wook Put New Spin on the 2003 Classic
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