Interview: How Park Eun-bin, Once Known as a Model Student, Went Off the Rails in ‘The WONDERfools’ (Part 2)

▶ This interview with Park Eun-bin on 〈The WONDERfools〉Part 1 continues below.

“At its core, the series is about solidarity among flawed people.” The characters grow through that process. How did you interpret and portray Chae-ni’s process of growth?

Chae-ni was, after all, living on borrowed time. What the four members of The WONDERfools share is that they were people who had never really achieved anything or fought for anything, people who didn’t even know what they wanted. They didn’t recognize their own deficits, but those weaknesses surfaced as escapist desires, which led them to acquire powers—and those powers then became opportunities to turn weaknesses into strengths. Smart people can wreck the world, but these characters had a fundamentally good nature and a clear sense of what they should do, and that’s what made them able to save the world.

The relationship between Chae-ni and Un-jeong (Cha Eun-woo) was intriguing as well. Their chemistry sits somewhere between romance and friendship. How did you read the relationship between Un-jeong and Chae-ni?

Chae-ni, who had been living with a time limit, finally started checking items off her bucket list, and someone who had been a Haesung City–bound fixture suddenly saw her world expand. Psychologically, Chae-ni’s world widened, and she was able to escape the daily fear of “what if today’s the last day” and take the next step. Un-jeong, too, is someone who grew up in isolation, but he learned social skills by observing people who brazenly crossed into his world. I don’t think their relationship has reached the point of being called love; it’s more that they simply enjoy being together and that each feels the other’s absence more keenly.

The beach scenes with Un-jeong were striking. The repeated meetings and near-misses were fun to watch, but the shoot must have been tough.

It was freezing. There was a cutting wind and a lot of running. I recall it was the Yellow Sea, and I remember being glad we were able to catch a beautiful sunset. But I did learn why people tend to avoid the winter sea. (laughs)

Chae-ni teleports when her heart races. Speaking of that, what moment on set for 〈The WONDERfools〉 made your heart race the most?

When we climbed onto the airship at the end. They actually built a huge, full-size airship—almost like an enormous radish chunk. We kept pumping in air and then actually boarded it and rode up together with Mr. Gae Jin-sang (Choi Dae-hoon). Chae-ni’s wish to see the end of the world came from that feeling of “Before I die, I wish the world would just disappear with me.” But after she’s given life again and pushes past that fear, she embraces a mission—feeling that only she can protect the people she knows—which felt unexpectedly moving. After that shoot I remember thinking with some pride, “I was kind of heroic.”

Like the airship, the making-of footage showed that many scenes that looked like they would be done with CGI were actually filmed practically. Were there moments on The WONDERfools when you thought, “They actually did this too?”

We blew up cars and detonated lab interiors for real. The abandoned greenhouse sequence used cutting-edge ideas to break indoor and outdoor sets in stages. The scale was huge, and for the scene in the greenhouse where objects rain down on Chae-ni, the crew in green suits actually threw the items by hand. We paid close attention to making sure those transitions read smoothly on camera.

From 〈Hyper Knife〉 to 〈The WONDERfools〉, you’ve been on what people call a “dark Park Eun-bin” run. Was that a deliberate transformation?

I’m grateful to be getting a wide variety of offers. Producers have suggested characters I never would have thought I could play—very layered, complex roles. I didn’t set out deliberately to take on difficult or dark parts, but I’ve chosen projects that made my heart beat faster in the moment, and that’s probably why others describe it as a bold turn. I try not to frame things as a “challenge,” because that can become a burden. I see it as “trying something I wanted to try.” I believe people who share that taste will follow along, and if a role doesn’t fit someone, I hope to meet them again in another form through future opportunities.

This is your second OTT project after 〈Hyper Knife〉, and it’s your first time having an entire series released at once. That must feel different.

Whenever I’ve wrapped a project, the day of closing has usually been a round of press interviews. Today is supposed to be the moment I let the character go, but because the entire series was released at once, I’m not ready. (laughs) I’m not sure when I’m supposed to say goodbye to these characters when they’re out all at once. It’s a strange feeling, unlike anything before, and I’ll figure out how to process it over time. It feels like a beginning, and I think my own life force probably lasts until there is even a single viewer waiting for me. Beginnings and endings ultimately depend on the audience, so I hope viewers keep finding little details they missed on repeat viewings.

Your next project is about to air. With 〈A Chilling Romance〉, expectations are high that you’ll present a “Park Eun-bin style chaebol.”

Lately I’ve been living so much in the skin of CEO Cheon Yeo-ri (the character in 〈A Chilling Romance〉) that when I came to talk about Chae-ni I felt I needed help from my appearance today, which is why I dressed this way. (laughs) The “Park Eun-bin style chaebol” is, first and foremost, a businessperson who works hard. The greater the responsibility a role carries for a project, the more humbled and modest everything feels before release. I’ll wait for judgment day. I can’t guarantee commercial success—that will be up to viewers. As always, I’ll do my best and try not to be crushed by the pressure, staying as composed as I can.

Park Eun-bin debuted as a child model in 1996 and has now reached her 30th year in the business. Looking back on those 30 years, how do you feel?

It’s startling how 30 years have already passed; at times it feels distant, and at other times it feels like it went by in a flash. My pride is that I’ve hardly had any long gaps and have managed to show at least one project a year. I expect to continue with much the same effort going forward. When a work reaches viewers, it means they’re giving you some of their precious leisure time, and I see my job as convincing them that characters like these can exist in the world and letting the message I want to convey seep into viewers naturally through a single character.

You once revealed on YouTube that as a child you had a photographic memory. If you had a small, personal superpower now, what would it be — or what superpower would you like?

I think I’ve lost all those powers. (laughs) I really loved that ability back then but completely forgot how to use it. I miss it a lot. Lacking any real power makes me work harder. If I could have a superpower now, since I’m actually pretty shy, I’d like an ability that makes people not recognize my face—something that leaves them thinking, “I saw them, but who were they?” That kind of persona ability.