Celebrity

The reason “Narco-Saints” director cast a dance singer, who had been inactive for over 10 years, to play Chang Chen’s subordinate

Netizens recently found a familiar face in Netflix’s drama “Narco-Saints”, which is gaining huge popularity around the world.

Song Ho-bum, who used to be active as a member of the dance group “One Two”, caught the viewers’ attention with his appearance in “Narco-Saints”.

In this drama, Song Ho-bum played the role of a subordinate in the gang led by Chen Zhen, the character played by Taiwanese actor Chang Chen, and presented an extraordinary performance.

In fact, Song Ho-bum made his debut through the promotion of an exciting song called “Now, Hips” in 2003 together with Oh Chang-hoon. He made the whole nation hum along to the easy and addictive lyrics “Put your hands up, shake it left to right, back to front, again and again”.

Then how did Song Ho-bum, who used to work as a singer only, end up challenging acting in “Narco-Saints”?

On September 25th, Star news reported an exciting story about Song Ho-bum being cast for “Narco-Saints”. 

Accordingly, it was thanks to director Yoon Jong-bin that Song Ho-bum, who had not been active for several years, appeared in “Narco-Saints”.

What’s more interesting is that Song Ho-bum even received the casting offer from director Yoon Jong-bin first.

Revealing that he became close to director Yoon after having a few private meetings, Song Ho-bum said, “Director Yoon has known my best friend since their college days, so I had met him several times before”, adding “The director once asked me if I wanted to act as he had a role that suits me. That’s how I ended up taking on the role of the No.1 gangster in China. I had never thought about acting until then, but the director gave me such a good opportunity.

As a fan of director Yoon Jong-bin, he eventually accepted the casting offer and appear in the drama with joy. However, he also felt extremely burdened.

Song Ho-bum shared, “I couldn’t sleep well for six months straight before starting filming the work. I wondered if it was a dream or not”, adding “The director is known to be good at capturing the characters of male actors and have produced many stars, so I was very excited.” 

Since it was his first time challenging acting, Song Ho-bum reportedly prepared a lot. He played a Chinese character so he had to speak Chinese. 

Despite having only one line, Song Ho-bum revealed that he practiced hard until he was worn out for two months to say it naturally”. He continued, “I repeated my line a lot to the extent that my children also memorized it. Perhaps thanks to the practice, I got an ‘OK’ sign right from the first take without making any NG”.

Song Ho-bum, who plays the role of a Chinese gangster, also made many changes to his outlook in order not to interfere with the viewers’ immersion in the drama. He reportedly gained weight until reaching 106kg to make himself look strong and tough. 

As a result, even Song Ho-bum’s fans did not recognize him when they watched the drama for the first time. A lot of viewers applauded Song Ho-bum for his effort in completing his role even though it was a minor character. 

Song Ho-bum said, “Many people didn’t recognize me because of my appearance, which is so different from my image when I was active in One Two”, adding “Now, I’m on a diet again”. 

Meanwhile, One Two released many hit songs besides “Now, Hips”. Several songs, such as “Bad Girl”, Bad Girl II”, “VERY GOOD”, and “Onw Two”, are still loved by many people. For some reason, One Two has not released any new song since 2010. 

Song Ho-bum continued to do collaborations with other singers until 2011. Since then, he did not even appear on broadcasts and has only performed once in a few years.

Source: insight

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