The Glory, Queen of Tears: Korean actor Park Sung-hoon is making a name for himself – next up is Squid Game season 2
- Fresh off two villainous turns in popular K-dramas The Glory and Queen of Tears, actor Park Sung-hoon looks forward to his appearance in Squid Game season two
- He hopes viewers will feel sympathy for his Queen of Tears character Eun-sung, and bears no ill will towards fans who post harsh comments about the character
By Lee Gyu-lee
This article contains spoilers.
Park Sung-hoon’s breakout role came in the form of antagonist Jeon Jae-jun in Netflix’s 2022 hit series The Glory.
“During my career, I’ve often had it where people need to reference the roles I’ve played to explain me. But now, when they say Jeon Jae-jun, they recognise me right away, which feels good because I now have a nickname that people can put to a face,” the actor says.
“With Queen of Tears, a lot of people started to call me Eun-sung. And it motivated me to work harder with different projects, hoping one day I’ll be remembered as Park Sung-hoon rather than Jeon Jae-jun and Yoon Eun-sung.”
Despite the apparent fairy tale – he is a country boy who marries a conglomerate heiress – Baek decides to divorce his wife, who is egotistical and demanding.
His divorce plans, however, take a turn when Hong is diagnosed with cancer, leading him to see a different side of Hong and to find hope that their marriage can be saved.
Under the Gun: Zuho, Jo Soo-min lead poker-themed K-drama
Park plays Hong’s university friend, who comes back into her life and secretly plans to take over the company with his birth mother – the mistress of the group’s president.
His character, who harbours a twisted love for Hong, meets a tragic death. The actor says, in playing the character, he focused on his unyielding love for Hong.
“I discussed a few things with the series’ writer, Park Ji-eun, as I prepared for my roles, but she emphasised his love for Hong.
“Yoon always treated people with a facade, but his feelings for Hong were true and desperate,” he says, adding he hopes viewers feel sympathy for the character by the end.
“He doesn’t know how to be loved and to love so I feel his way of showing love came out twisted. Although Yoon was a villain, he had such dedicated love, in his opinion, towards Hong, so I think the ending felt a bit sorrowful and bitter.
“[Queen of Tears] shows his backstory, which sort of explains why Yoon became such a person. So I also [hope] his ending draws some sympathy.”
As Yoon is an obstacle to Hong and Baek’s love story in the show, the actor says he has received a lot of harsh comments from the series’ fans.
“I’m actually not bothered or hurt by those direct messages [on social media] … because they root for Hong and Baek, they have such feelings towards [my character]. That’s how much they love and put interest in our series so I enjoy reading the comments,” he says.
“Now I think perspectives have changed. Previously, people used to see the character as the actor’s real personality, but now, more people see it separately. So I try to think of it as compliments that I portrayed my character convincingly.”
“[Squid Game] put together such skilled actors, which made it more fun to work on set, watching their performances and co-acting with them. So I had such a great time … standing on the set and filming in that tracksuit felt so enthralling,” he says.
“I’ve been called Jae-jun, then Eun-sung. So next, I hope I can be called by my character’s name from Squid Game.”
Queen of Tears is streaming on Netflix.
