Park So-dam feels family responsibility on and off the screen

Park So-dam may play a sharp, coolheaded second daughter who often clashes with her mother and sisters in “The Journey to Gyeongju,” but offscreen, the actor says, she is every bit the eldest child. 

In the new black comedy directed by Kim Mi-jo, Park plays law school graduate Yeong-ju. The most analytical and meticulous of three surviving sisters, she helps her mother plot the murder of the man who killed their youngest sister, working around the law even as she secretly hopes the plan will fall through.

But as the eldest of three in real life, Park said she related closely to Jang-ju, the eldest daughter played by Kong Hyo-jin, particularly in her sense of responsibility for holding the family together and putting her mother’s needs before her own. 

“I’ve always thought that being good to my parents is simply something I should do, because I’ve received so much from them,” Park said in a roundtable interview on Thursday. “My mother tells me, ‘You must be tired, you don’t have to do so much [for us],’ but I tell her, ‘I’m not doing it for you. I do it because I enjoy it.’ It makes me happy.”

That instinct flared even during Park’s own recovery from thyroid cancer surgery, as her mother was caring for Park’s ailing grandmother. The actor underwent surgery in December 2021 and returned to work before later taking a two-year break from acting.

At the time, with “limited movement in her neck and her voice not yet fully returned,” Park said she found herself more worried about her mother, who had lost around 8 kilograms (18 pounds) while caring for her own mother. During a recuperative stay on Jeju Island, a short flight away from the peninsula, Park felt guilty about being away while her mother remained at home with her grandmother.

“I kept thinking, ‘Is it right for me to be here in Jeju by myself when my mother is taking care of my grandmother?’” she recalled. Her mother eventually told her to stop worrying: “Let me take care of my mother. You go live your life.”

Such experiences helped Park understand the conflicting loyalties at the heart of “The Journey to Gyeongju,” in which grief pushes a mother toward revenge that her daughters know could destroy what remains of the family.

“There was a huge whirlwind inside [Yeong-ju],” Park said. “[She believes] that it's most important that the people who are still alive live well. But I could also understand the mother saying, ‘How can I just go back to living the way I did before?’”

“The Journey to Gyeongju,” set to release next Wednesday, marks Park’s return to the silver screen after more than three years. She reunites with Lee Jung-eun, her co-star in the Academy Award-winning “Parasite” (2019), this time as her daughter, and stars alongside Kong and Lee Yeon as the other two sisters.

It was those co-stars — whom Park affectionately calls her “Gyeongju family” — who helped her work through the anxieties that came with stepping away from acting to recover from surgery.

There was one project in particular that Park had to turn down because it involved outdoor action scenes in the middle of winter, which she feared her health would not allow her to handle.

“I was so upset that my condition forced me to make that choice, and I kept wondering whether I should have just taken responsibility and pushed through,” Park said.

When Park found herself second-guessing that decision, “Jung-eun would ask me, 'So-dam, are you anxious because you’re worried that project might do well?’” the actor recalled with a smile.

“If that wasn’t it, she told me, then it was fine. It was O.K. to be upset because I wanted to do the project so badly but wasn’t physically well enough — just don’t be jealous if it does well,” she said.

“But I was just frustrated with myself for not being in good enough shape,” Park added. “That made me realize that if I want to be able to seize an opportunity when it comes, I have to take good care of my health.”

Now feeling healthier, Park said she hopes to take on more projects and return to a more active pace of work.

“Back when I was promoting ‘Phantom,’ I kept telling people, ‘I’m really fine,’” she said, referring to the 2023 film that would become her last movie before her hiatus.

“Looking back now, I wasn’t,” she said. “But after taking two years off and exercising almost every day, I think I can finally say that I really am O.K. now.”

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]