KB News Desk
Actor Han So-hee said Monday that being cast alongside veteran actor Choi Min-sik in the Korean remake of the Hollywood hit “The Intern” (2015) felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity she could not pass up.
In the Korean remake of the same name, Han portrays Sun-woo, a workaholic corporate executive who helms a successful fashion startup and comes to hire “silver intern” Ki-ho as part of company efforts to cut tax.
Choi, meanwhile, plays Ki-ho, a retired family man in his late 60s, who had worked for 37 years in the publishing industry. His strengths are tidying up, driving and chatting with people around him, while his hobbies are arranging flowers and making coffee.
“Frankly, I felt an opportunity like this would not come again in my life. And working with Choi? I thought this was something I had to dive into headfirst, so I gave it everything I had,” she said at a press conference in Seoul for “Intern.”
The actor acknowledged that pressure came with accepting a role that had been played by Anne Hathaway in the original film, but she tried to brush it off by focusing on her role as Sun-woo.
“It would be a lie to say there was no pressure,” Han said. “I tried to forget the original work during filming and build Sun-woo as a character that has similarities with my own personality.”
Choi also mentioned the pressure of working on a remake of the globally popular hit, starring Hathaway and Robert De Niro, noting how he read an online post written on the lines of “do not spoil my favorite movie.”
But he emphasized that director Kim Do-young and the actors did their best in making the upcoming film more authentic and relatable for Korean audiences, especially for office workers of all ages.
“The original work was fantastic … but I thought the story could take on new flavor in a Korean setting that reflects the joy and sorrow of Koreans and their worldviews,” Choi said, adding that instead of trying too much to differentiate the remake version, he tried his best to show his own version of the intern character.
Kim, the director, noted 10 years have passed since the Hollywood film was released, saying how changes in worldviews and generational trends and frictions that arise from them, especially in workplace settings, have been factored in the film.
At the same time, she praised the actors for their performance, noting that their charm is what carries the film and differentiates it from the original film.
“Ki-ho and Sun-woo are very realistic characters. They both have their weaknesses and strengths and go through feelings of loneliness and anxiety. I think audiences will relate to them very well,” Kim said.
“Rather than being an idealistic comedy, it is a film about characters firmly grounded in reality,” she added.
“Intern” is set to open on Sept. 16. (Yonhap)
