Here’s Song Joongki’s honest take on his surprising decision to star in “Hopeless” without a fee
On September 25th, ahead of the release of the movie ‘Hopeless,’ Song Joongki had an interview with Wikitree.
‘Hopeless’ is a noir drama that tells the story of Yeongyu, a boy who wants to escape the hellish reality and ends up getting involved with Chigeon, the middle boss of an organization, in a perilous world. The film was invited to the 76th Cannes International Film Festival held earlier this year. In the movie, Song Joongki plays Chigeon.
Regarding his decision to star in ‘Hopeless,’ Song Joongki said, “I wanted to do it because I hadn’t tried it before. I can’t mention it, but there was a similar feeling of a movie I wanted to do, but I couldn’t. I had regrets, but when I read this script, I contacted them and said I wanted to do it.” He added, “I received many offers when I was at a moment where there were many formulas for success in the industry. At that time, I thought, ‘Is this frustrating?’ But then I read the script for ‘Hopeless.'”
‘Hopeless’ garnered attention as Song Joongki participated in the project without pay. He explained, “In fact, I didn’t receive an offer to appear in this film. It was a moment when I was rejecting another project proposed by the production company. The person from the production company is a close friend, and he asked, ‘So what kind of project do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I want to do something like this,’ and he said, ‘Do you want to see something you might like?’ And that’s how it started.”
He continued, “I liked the script so much that I wanted to do it. The problem was that my management CEO seemed unlikely to approve it. The company structure is such that it has to consider profitability, and it’s not a big project, and I won’t even receive a pay, so I thought the CEO wouldn’t approve.”
However, Song Joongki said, “But then the CEO read the script and said he got the same feeling when he saw ‘Capernaum’ at an international film festival without following the traditional formula of commercial films. So, I ended up doing it. I wasn’t going to talk about joining the film without a pay, but I think I will.”
Song Joongki’s no-pay appearance in ‘Hopeless’ has become a topic of discussion, and there have been some side effects. He said, “The directors who are sending me scripts now say, ‘You’re not taking any money there, but are you going to charge me a lot?’ Please write this in the article. I will charge them. I will charge them a lot,” as he chuckled.
Source: wikitree
