Popular SKorean actor Kim Woo-bin looks ahead with gratefulness post his battle with nasopharyngeal cancer

KATHMANDU: South Korean model-turned-actor Kim Woo-bin is back after four long years and battling nasopharyngeal cancer. And his fans and well-wishers could not be happier.

Gracing the cover of July 2020 of Esquire, Hellokpop reports that the actor looks back on his journey as a celebrity and looks ahead as he takes up his acting goals again having participated in MBC’s documentary, Humanimal, while also having an appearance in a sci-fi film that will have a powerhouse cast of actors like So Ji Sub, Yeom Jung Ah, Ryu Jun Yeol and Kim Tae Ri.

Referring to the interview with Esquire on the pictorial which the actor seems not to be doing much these days, the portal notes that the actor responded saying he had appeared in various work without rest and that the pictorial was not doing anything different as it is his job to always strive for a good work.

“It’s been a while since I can greet with new work. That alone is grateful and exciting to me. It’s fun to go to the shooting site these days,” he is quoted as saying.

Kim Woo-bin is one of the few models who has gone on to have immense success as actors. No one will forget his Choi Young-do in The Heirs or the troubled yet misunderstood student Park Heung-soo who nurses football dreams in School 2013, or the player Chi-ho in the coming of age comedy Twenty that he starred alongside Kang Ha-neul and Lee Joon-ho.

Yet the star acknowledges his fortunate streak and claims that he was just lucky being thankful for how his movies rake in numbers sustaining the production cost.

“That’s true… I was lucky. The number of the audience is unknown because the movie is either good or bad. Even if the movie is so good, it often doesn’t work because the time or situation isn’t right,” he is quoted to have said in the interview.

And is there a favourite character, one that is closest to him? He opined that he has changed since and that his roles from before do not match his current self.

As his present self is calmer than when he was in his 20s. This he credited to his newfound fixation on trees, flowers and plants.

So much so that he even uses a mobile phone app to figure out the names of flowers or plants he sees.

“It’s because of age. But I really like it. As I watch the seasons pass, I think,'What flowers will bloom this month? Lilac will bloom in April.’ And then I can smell that scent,” he is seen to be describing and defending his passion.

Recalling his youth, the actor reminiscences how he lived a busy life with grit, and didn't ask money from his parents though he was practically living in a sauna (bathhouse).

“Looking back at that time, I think I lived in the future, not the present. I lived whipping myself to push for my goals. At that time, I think I couldn’t enjoy much of the present pleasure. When I think of the present, I feel less stressed, I feel happier, and I feel more grateful. I think it’s more because of things that I thought were taken for granted, weren’t taken for granted,” the actor reckoned. — HNS