[INTERVIEW] Bae Yong-joon (Part 2)

10: What kind of person are you seen as in every day life by people around you and your acquaintances?
Bae: I’m a straightforward person. If someone makes a mistake, I talk about it right way and that’s it. But if the mistake is repeated, I get angry and scold them. So they're scared of me, but still I think they trust me and rely on me a lot.

10: I heard you’re planning to publish an English edition of “Discovering”.
Bae: I’m planning on printing an English version and I want to make one in braille too. The braille version would be produced for charity, not for sale. But the trickiest thing about printing braille is figuring out how to express the photographs.

10: Can you tell us the reason your agency and BOF International, the Japan subsidiary of KIST where you are the biggest shareholder, merged with Digital Adventure? And how that is going to affect the tourism business in Japan?
Bae: To be honest, I’m really not interested in business. There was a period when I was, but I think there are too many limits in what I can do so I don’t think it’s my kind of work. Now -- I don’t know how long I’ll be an actor -- but I want to be a farmer, a lacquer artist and sculptor.

10: Do you really have a detailed plan about becoming a farmer?
Bae: I don’t have a detailed plan but when you say it out loud and dream about it, I think it comes true. So I constantly talk about it if there is something I want to do. This is the first time that I’ve made it public in front of reporters about wanting to become a farmer, but it’s been about five years since I started talking about it. And I’m very interested in the environment too. I’m reading books to learn about farming, but you don't achieve anything in your life on your own. It also doesn't happen overnight so sometime in the future, I believe I am going to be surrounded by people who share my dreams.

10: You don’t seem all that interested in business, yet you keep presenting a variety of ideas. What personally inspires you?
Bae: I think everything comes from books. When I was a kid, I was very shy so I read a lot of books. And for a while, I didn’t have any time to read. But then I started staying home almost all the time, so I started reading again. And like I wrote in my book that you can learn a lot of things at museums, I get a lot of ideas from past cultural heritage, or what we call traditional culture.

10: What is your average day like?
Bae: It's not fun. (laugh) If I went to bed early the previous night, I wake up around 7 or 8 in the morning. If I was up working late, then I would get up around 10 or 11 a.m. and have a cup of tea. Then I would work out for about an hour, take a shower, read books... Sometimes I make pottery and lacquer too.

10: You shot a commercial with the famous tagline “You are a man who has everything”. Can you tell us about the things that you think you lack in or need, and what kind of life that you want in the long run?
Bae: What I need -- a wife? (laugh) In the book, I wrote about “The Gateless Gate” which is tended to by Zen monks. In order to enter the Gate, you have to fill yourself with a lot of things to rid yourself of them. When I thought about that while I was sitting at home, I realized the owner of that space was the furniture, not me. So I thought, some day I will get rid of all this and have less and less of everything. That time may come sooner than expected, and I think I may be much happier living with the feeling that I lack in some things rather than having a lot of things and living the high life. So I’m thinking about cutting down and getting rid of a lot of things.

10: You were already a star before “Winter Sonata” became a hit in 2002, but you became a top star throughout all of Asia after it. Does your current life sometimes still seem surreal to you?
Bae: Not really. To tell you the truth, it’s been that way ever since I debuted so there is nothing that I'm not used to. The difference is that now when I go somewhere, people from the travel agency bring people to where I am. Oh, but that doesn’t mean that I go to strange places. (laugh) So it doesn’t matter, but I am a little disappointed about the lack of freedom.

10: You’ve been through some changes during the past seven years. So even acting for the same role in dubbing for the animation version of “Winter Sonata” must have felt different.
Bae: I actually was a bit hesitant at first when I heard about the animation. I was convinced that doing the same work was -- I’m sorry to say this -- not going to be interesting or exciting for me. But when I got home and read the script from the beginning, I suddenly felt like I wanted to be in love. It’s embarrassing to talk about your own work like this, but I realized once again that “Winter Sonata” was a really good drama. How can anyone take over someone’s heart like this, so completely? I wanted to re-live those emotions and act again. So I said I would do it right away, but it has been seven years and there are some things, like my voice, that have changed. But I try to just go back to that same moment. I also believe I can.

10: For some time, when choosing your work, it looked like you were trying to avoid roles that gave off a sweet or soft feeling, like the role you played in “Winter Sonata”. What sort of changes made you feel like you wanted to be in love again?
Bae: I had never traveled on a trip after making my debut and started shooting dramas. I was always on set. When people asked me what I did in 2002, I would say “Winter Sonata”. When they asked what I did in 1999, I would answer “Did We Really Love?“. So those dramas weren’t just work for me, they were a part of my life. I think my heart opened up a little when I went on this trip and felt a lot of things. I had planned to go to Chuncheon by myself to take pictures before I got sick. I had never felt this way before, but I think I started thinking those things and gained the will to do so from working on the book.

10: A lot of people are probably wondering what your next work or next step will be. As an actor, is there something specific that you desire?
Bae: Actually no, not “as an actor”. I have no plans about becoming a certain kind of actor or going to Hollywood. I just want to do my best every moment with what I am given.

10: Having been to cultural heritage sites like Miruksa Temple, you must feel that time, such as a thousand years, is fleeting. Have you ever thought about what you would be if you were born a thousand years ago?
Bae: Umm… I thought more about the different kind of life that our ancestors would have lived. The reason I thought about it is because I heard that it took over a year of planning and then over two years to restore Miruksa Temple. Which means it is that difficult to restore even with all the modern science technology that we have. So I thought a lot about how they could have built such architectural structures back in those days. And how much time they had in discovering themselves having just books and nature around them -- no TVs or newspapers. And I think that could be the reason a human’s abilities improved. So then I thought, if we keep trying ourselves, we could leave behind an improved culture for out future generations as well.

10: Then in thousand years, if people were to write about a person named Bae Yong-joon, what would you want written about you?
Bae: (After contemplation) Seriously, I haven’t thought about that yet. I don’t know if people would write about me, but I’ll think about it and let you know over the phone.

Editor in Chief : Beck Una one@10asia.co.kr
Reporter : Choi Ji-Eun five@10asia.co.kr
Photographer : Lee Jin-hyuk eleven@10asia.co.kr
Editor : Lynn Kim lynn2878@asiae.co.kr, Lee Ji-Hye seven@10asia.co.kr