Kang You-seok Looks Back on His Climb From Small Roles to Leads

"I think it was a time for me to grow as an actor," Kang You-seok said. "Even if I had to do it all over again, I'd still say Hee-chan is the most appealing character."

Kang was talking about his role in "Final Interview" (Choejong Myeonjeop), a film directed by Kim Jung-hoon. He has gone to more than 200 auditions. Despite this, he never gave up on acting, and he has slowly worked his way from small parts to lead roles. Playing a job applicant in a final interview made him look back on his own road.

The film is set during the pandemic. Six applicants have beaten odds of 5,000 to 1 to reach the final interview room. Suddenly, mysterious envelopes turn up holding one applicant's secret, and the room falls into chaos. Kang plays Lee Hee-chan, a relaxed applicant who takes charge of the room.

"When I read the script, I thought, 'I really want to play Hee-chan,'" he said.

It wasn't easy, though. Kang said it took him a long time to understand the character, and some parts were even painful to act. "Whenever something didn't make sense to me, I kept talking it through with the director," he said.

Hee-chan has applied to big companies dozens of times and been turned down every single time. The repeated failure forced him into self-hatred. Kang said the role brought back memories of his own rejections. He has auditioned more than 200 times.

"At some point, it got so hard that I thought I should just stop," he said.

"I took two to three months off from auditions and focused on getting my head back in a good place. After the break, I started auditioning again. That's when I began landing roles, one at a time. I'm really grateful for that."

Kang made his debut in 2018 on the cable channel OCN's "Quiz from God: Reboot." He built his résumé with shows like "Start-Up" and "Beyond Evil." In 2023, he played the lead role of Sa-wol in Netflix's "Black Knight." He calls that series his turning point.

"Other people might say a different project was my turning point," he said. "But I think this one gave me more confidence than I had before."

"I remember thinking, 'I finally got a lead role.' It gave me the drive to keep acting. I started to believe I was someone who could do this, too."

That confidence started to show on set. Actor Park Hae-joon, who worked with Kang on "I Have Not Done My Best" (Ajik Choeseoneul Dahaji Aneuseul Ppun) and on "When Life Gives You Tangerines," told him he seemed confident in a way he hadn't before, and that has made him appealing.

"I worked hard before that, too, but I think I was shrinking back," Kang said. "Since 'Black Knight,' I think I've been okay."

"I believe I'm where I am today because I worked so hard back then. I want to tell that version of me, 'You've been through a lot. I'm proud of you.'"

"Final Interview" stars six actors close in age: Kang, Cho Yi-hyun, Kim Jae-won, Shin Seung-ho, Kwak Dong-yeon and Bae Gang-hee. This time, Kang was the oldest of the lead cast. In earlier interviews, his co-stars thanked him for working to keep a light mood on set.

It was a new experience for him. "Before this, I was always the youngest on set, or close to it, so it was really comfortable," he said. "People looked after me and took the lead."

"The good thing is that I was only the oldest among people my age," he said. He added that Kwak Dong-yeon, who has the longest career of the group, helped him a lot. "I kept thinking, when else will six people our age get to have this much fun filming together?"

Kang spoke warmly about each of his co-stars. When asked how he would do if they all competed for the same role, he laughed. "I think I'd be the first one cut," he said.

"Everyone on set had a slightly different color. They're all really talented, and the more we talked, the more I saw what makes each of them special. All six of us have strong charms. Haha."