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Actor Cho Han Gyeol opened up about the challenges he faced while filming Undercover Miss Hong, his original dream, and more.
Undercover Miss Hong follows Hong Geum Bo (Park Shin Hye), an ace supervisor for the Financial Supervisory Service, who goes undercover as a 20-year-old entry-level employee at a securities firm after detecting suspicious fund flows.
In the drama, Cho Han Gyeol played Albert Oh Ro, the grandson of Chairman Kang Pil Beom (Lee Deok Hwa) of Hanmin Securities and the only son of Director Oh Deok Gyu (Kim Hyung Mook). He played a troublesome yet impossible-to-hate member of the Risk Management Division.
Speaking about the drama and his on-screen character in an interview with local media, Cho Han Gyeol said, "Since he's an immature character who doesn't even know how to work, I decided to take the approach of just doing whatever I wanted. Manager Yong Gi, too, and everyone else had their own characters, but I think they really did see me as the young head of the division off-camera too. I just did whatever I wanted, and there was this atmosphere where they would quietly look after me from behind."
As for the line he remembers most, he chose Albert's, "Why is it still Wednesday?" Cho Han Gyeol laughed as he said, "It was a line Albert said early on [in the drama] after coming to work. It was something I really used to think about a lot when I was in school." Speaking about the scenes he paid particular attention to, he said, "Every scene I did as Albert was difficult. I'm not actually a person with that kind of high energy, so I would even jump and do such things. I think raising my energy was the hardest part."
SBS's Connection, JTBC's Romance in the House, SBS's The Haunted Palace, SBS's The Winning Try, JTBC's My Youth, and tvN's Undercover Miss Hong — the past two years were an especially busy time for Cho.
The actor said, "I barely had any days off when I was filming last year. I traveled here and there for location shoots as well. I shared accommodations with the The Winning Try cast members, and I was so tired that I talked in my sleep a lot. We filmed The Winning Try in many different places, but the area where we did the most location shooting was Wanju." He continued, "Acting is fun. I think what makes it fun is that I get to try new things and become a different person. I become a ghost, the next an athlete. It's enjoyable, and I really like it."
Although he made his debut in 2020, his passion for acting has still not run dry. "I'm the type of person who monitors my dramas a lot. I really watch them endlessly. These days, I even watch my earlier work a lot. When I look at my early stuff, I really don't want to watch it. I was so bad."
He added, "There's definitely a big difference compared to six years ago. When I look at my old videos, I think I've grown a lot. With things like eye-line, for example, in my older work, it feels inconsistent and as if it wasn't set, whereas now I try to decide things like my gaze [in advance] and pay attention to pronunciation as well. I think the range in which I think about acting has broadened quite a bit. Compared to when I first debuted, I think my ambition for acting has grown even stronger now. That's why compliments about my acting make me the happiest."
As for what keeps him going in his acting career, he pointed to his family's support. "I get a lot of strength from my mother and father's support. Just going to set itself is a driving force for me. I want to keep being on set. As long as I can get some proper sleep, I'm good."
He continued, "My parents supported me a lot from the very beginning, and I think my father actually wanted [me to become an actor]. He brags about me a lot to his friends, and these days he often tells me I've worked so hard and that he's proud of me. He hasn’t missed a single original broadcast of this drama either. This time too, he called me and told me it was really fun."
Cho Han Gyeol gave up his first dream of becoming a baseball player due to an injury, but he went on to find a new dream in acting. In the end, he achieved that dream as well. He recalled, "I was actually a baseball player when I was in high school. While I was playing baseball, acting was a second, distant dream of mine. I had a small thought that I wanted to try being an actor too, but I didn't quit sports to become an actor. I had a serious leg injury and had to undergo multiple surgeries."
"After I quit being a baseball player, I was thinking about what to do next, and that was when I decided to challenge myself and pursue acting, which had been my second dream. I started dreaming of becoming an actor from the age of 18. Because I had been so long in sports, the future felt uncertain, so I think I tried to make a decision more quickly."
Asked whether he had a plan in mind for himself for his acting career, he replied, "I want to become an actor with human quality. I want to be an actor who feels real and human. One who is good at acting." "I want to try noir. I want to do action too. I want to play a villain, a psychopath as well."
Lastly, Cho Han Gyeol told viewers of Undercover Miss Hong, "Our drama was 16 episodes long, and I really want to say thank you so, so much for trusting [us] and watching it all the way through for such a long time. I'll greet you again in my next project with a better performance and as a better person."
Undercover Miss Hong is available to stream on Netflix.
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