As with everything else in life, acting too sometimes becomes more unfamiliar and new the more you do it. As it was a form of art expressed with the human body, it too would become formulized over time. That person would eventually stop worrying and fall back to their compiled methodology until eventually they feel a sense of mannerism and change their method.

The acting they had done for years would become unfamiliar in a span of an instant.

‘This method’ when expressing joy and ‘that method’ when expressing sadness — when that formulized internal system collapses, some would say they agonized, but for Ganghwan, he always looked forward to such moments.

The reason he took a so-called ‘Sabbatical year’ and spent time in places unrelated to his acting was also to break through his mannerism. He was intentionally placing a gap in his work period to shake off the things he had gotten used to, both consciously and subconsciously.

Having escaped his original method of acting, when he started this drama, he placed his focus on ‘raw acting’ this time. Rough emotional acting with minimal filtering. He really wanted to remove all the emotional filters and throw himself into the role, but as the role was that of a murderer, he couldn’t exactly do that.

He was holding onto a sliver of himself so that no accidents would occur.

In that sense, the character...