'Humans are weaklings': Gong Yoo on his takeaway from his new movie Seo Bok

Earlier this month at a press conference in Seoul to promote his new film Seo Bok, Gong Yoo jokingly complained that a big chunk of his opening scene was chopped off.

He said it was the first scene he filmed, where his character Ki-hun hugged a toilet bowl and threw up. The 41-year-old deliberately lost weight to better portray Ki-hun, who has a brain tumour and doesn't have long to live.

"My neck hurt for a whole week after I filmed that scene," Gong Yoo said.

Director Lee Yong-ju explained he was worried some viewers would think Ki-hun is throwing up from a hangover, so he made the hard call to forgo that scene.

In the film, which opened in Singapore last week, Gong Yoo plays ex-intelligence agent Ki-hun, who has to protect Seo Bok (Park Bo-gum), the first-ever human clone who is gifted with the secret to eternal life.

In a video interview provided to AsiaOne, Gong Yoo said Ki-hun has a dark history that traumatises him and he had to isolate himself from the world.

"Even though you wouldn't know what he had fully gone through in his past, you kind of know he has survived many painful days. I want to relay that impression to the audience in Ki-hun's first appearance, so I made my expressions look more gloomy, sadder, and more tired than a normal person," he said.

"I put in a lot of effort to make sure that Ki-hun made people feel he is living a hard life just by looking at his face."

Seo Bok talks about life and death, and Gong Yoo thinks audiences might have a highly different and extreme interpretation of the film, based on their individual perspective of things.

His main takeaway of the movie is this: "Humans are weaklings who have a limit on the length of their lives and they cannot escape from this fear that their lives would end one day.

"Similar to facing death, I think it is also equally important how we overcome that fear itself. More important than questioning how long we can live for, this movie makes me ponder how we should best live for now, knowing that we have limited time."

Watch our video to hear more from Gong Yoo on the film and working with Bo-gum.

Seo Bok is now showing in theatres in Singapore.

ALSO READ: What's the 1 thing that Gong Yoo really wants but can't get?

kwokkarpeng@asiaone.com