Choi Min-sik empathizes with his ‘pathetic’ character in ‘Notes from the Last Row’: ‘That’s what an actor does’

Choi Min-sik’s character in “Notes from the Last Row,” literature professor Heo Mun-oh, feels alive for the first time in a long while after he is pulled into the writing and life of an immensely talented student. Does anything still excite Choi, now in the 45th year of his career?

"I don't think so," Choi said, breaking into a somewhat sheepish but wide smile.

“My face is too well known for me to even attempt some thrilling act of rebellion.  I can’t even smoke a cigarette and toss the butt wherever I want," he said, pretending to look around for a surveillance camera.

“It’s when I encounter a good project that I get excited. Other than that, life is boring. Really boring,” he told reporters at a roundtable interview in Seoul on Thursday, following the release of the Netflix series last Friday.

“I feel the happiest and freest when I’m working on a project,” he said.

True to his word, the 64-year-old was as passionate as ever when talking about acting. The prolific and highly decorated actor, whose career spans TV, films including “Oldboy” (2003) and “Exhuma” (2024) and theater, became almost theatrical himself at times, his tone shifting and his hands moving animatedly as he spoke.

In Netflix Korea’s latest psychological thriller “Notes from the Last Row,” Choi’s Mun-oh is a man eaten away by insecurity after losing the ability to write following his debut novel. Mun-oh is a troubled man: He remains fixated on his first love, who married his literary rival, while failing to appreciate his own wife; he's an irritable professor who snaps easily at his students; and often disappears into his own delusions.

That was exactly why Choi wanted to play him.

“I find characters who are this pathetic, […] who still make you feel compassion for them, incredibly attractive,” he said. “A character who is too cool, like some kind of Superman, isn’t that interesting, is he?”

Looking at Mun-oh objectively, Choi said, he with his own values could not necessarily understand the character. But acting required him to inhabit Mun-oh’s life and to "believe that Mun-oh’s words and actions are right, at least to myself,” he said. “That is what an actor has to do.”

“So when I entered Mun-oh’s mind and looked at him from there, I thought, yes, he may be a pathetic man, but how much must he have suffered?”

If he ever met Mun-oh in real life, he said, he would take him aside, buy him a drink and give him a hug. Then, he added, he would offer some advice.

“You crazy bastard. Don’t do that. What’s wrong with you?” he said, slipping into mock exasperation. “Just write well yourself. Forget about [Mun-oh's first love] Ahn Eun-joo. The world is full of women. And you already have a wife!”

In the series, Mun-oh begins giving private writing lessons to Lee Kang, a quiet engineering student in his literature class, after becoming enamored with Kang's stories, which revolve around the student’s voyeuristic observations of his college friend Kim Se-yoon and Se-yoon’s parents. What begins as Kang’s story soon becomes warped by Mun-oh’s own desires, as the professor starts interfering in Kang’s life and crossing ethical lines.

Choi said he was drawn to the series because it was not easy to reduce to a single message.

“Shows like ‘Teach You a Lesson’ or ‘Agent Kim Reactivated,’ where evil is punished and justice is served, can be satisfying to watch in the summer,” he said. “But I think this series is about something more fundamental to human beings. It’s hard to sum up its theme in one sentence.”

“I liked that,” Choi said. “There are moments when it feels frustrating and uncomfortable to watch.”

The voyeurism in the series may be unsettling, he said, but it also reflects the world viewers already live in.

“Just think about how many observational reality shows there are now,” he said. “We are so used to peeking into other people’s lives. We don’t feel much guilt about it. Instead, we commercialize it and consume it.”

The violence of language was also central to what Choi wanted to communicate through the series.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say we live in an age where verbal violence is rampant, especially in politics,” he said. “People hurt each other so much through words and writing. It goes beyond distrust, into hatred and extremes.”

“There is a word, gueop, meaning the karma one creates through speech,” he said. “I think this series became an opportunity to think about that again.”

That, Choi said, is why he picked up “Notes from the Last Row” as soon as it was offered to him, even though he has become more selective about the projects he takes on.

"I can’t just do any [project] out of habit, or simply because acting is my job,” he said.

Over the years, he said, he has lived through and witnessed love, affection, anger and justice in many forms. What he wants now is to "take everything I’ve experienced and everything I’ve seen, put it all together and truly become part of the work."

"There are still so many things I want to do. […] Now, more than ever, there are so many things I want to express."

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]