'Squid Game' villain's first lead role has him back in corporate mode — pitching marketing ideas, uploading promo clips and worrying about ticket sales
If you followed the original "Squid Game" phenomenon a few years back, there's no way you could forget Jang Deok-su, Player No. 101, the hulking gangster who terrorized fellow contestants with sociopathic calculation — a man who would orchestrate a riot just to thin the herd, who would ditch allies the moment they stopped being useful. The role made Heo Sung-tae the face of villainy, one that seemed to emerge fully formed from some primal casting instinct.
But there is something curious about the man beyond the Netflix fame. In an industry that manufactures stars from adolescence, Heo came in late — breaking in at 34 through a nationally televised acting competition. After that, he spent years bouncing around with over 60 minor roles before carving out a niche as the go-to for thugs and heavies.
And despite his rough-hewn looks, Heo holds a degree in Russian literature from Pusan National University and climbed the corporate ladder at LG Electronics — the South Korean conglomerate behind everything from refrigerators to TV — handling global marketing before his detour into acting.
Now, 14 years after that TV acting competition and four years after "Squid Game" made him globally recognizable, Heo is finally taking lead billing in "The Informant," a crime action comedy about a bumbling detective and his scheming informant, who stumble into something bigger than they bargained for.
"Sometimes I wonder if my whole acting career was leading me to this film, to this director," Heo says. Wearing a hoodie with the film's title printed across it, he speaks quickly but quietly, with a certain hesitance.
It certainly means a lot to the 48-year-old that this is his first proper lead in a commercial release. "When I first got the script, I thought it was too early for me to carry a film," Heo says. "But then I met the director, and our comedic sensibilities just clicked. The conversation about the movie flowed so naturally that I signed on."
The character Heo identifies with is not exactly flattering. Nam-hyeok is a onetime ace detective demoted to irrelevance. He has lost his edge and mostly coasts through life until circumstances force him to remember who he used to be.
"I'm actually kind of pathetic in real life too," Heo says. "Indecisive, prone to backing away from risk."
The moment Nam-hyeok finally snaps back into form reminded him of his own turning point at an audition years ago. "Right before I walked onstage, I was shaking. I thought about my mom, told myself that I'd make her proud. That memory kept surfacing while we shot those scenes."
The film is a knowing riff on the sort of cop comedies that once ruled Korean box offices — a genre that thrived around the turn of the millennium before fading into obsolescence. Director Kim Seok resurrects the formula with self-aware excess, piling one double-cross atop another until the chaos becomes the whole point. It is broad stuff, and not all the gags land. But Heo, playing pathetic until he suddenly is not, holds it together.
What occupies Heo as much as the performance, though, is the business side of things.
"They say the role makes the person," he says. "Taking on a lead role, I've learned what that means. Mediating between director and staff, finding myself wanting to get out there and promote the film."
It helps that he's done this before, just in a different industry. "Back at LG, I did overseas marketing and planning. That experience keeps connecting to what I'm doing now — pitching ideas for promotional shorts, coordinating with the publicity team, calling them constantly."
Heo talks about juggling stakeholders the way a midlevel manager might — balancing the director's vision against the staff's concerns, keeping younger cast members on track. He's also been uploading dance clips to social media daily to drum up buzz, a callback to the gyrating routine he performed on "SNL Korea" a few years ago that went viral. "Honestly, I have no idea why these shorts catch on," he admits. "I don't fully understand the appeal. But if it helps get people into theaters, I'll keep at it."
Why all the extra effort? He knows how this usually goes. "From my experience with smaller productions, the actors and crew shouldn't have their sacrifices go to waste," he says.
"Before I signed on, I asked them to promise they'd really push the marketing. Because it breaks my heart — these aren't 10 billion or 20 billion won blockbusters. Everyone puts in the hours, the crew working through the cold, the actors taking pay cuts. And if it ends up drawing only 100,000 or 150,000 viewers at most, that just hurts."
The "Squid Game" fame, meanwhile, has been dizzying to navigate.
Right after the show exploded into the global zeitgeist, while shooting historical drama series "Bloody Heart," Heo had a panic attack on set. "It felt like everyone was staring at me. So I got help, went through therapy."
He's worked to stay grounded ever since. "When my Instagram followers hit 2.4 million after 'Squid Game,' I told myself this would all drain away eventually. And it did."
His goal, for now, is to stay grounded in the present moment. "I don't have big plans. I just take things day by day — do what's in front of me, and hopefully end up somewhere decent." He's never been one to chase ambition, either: "I've written plenty of long-term business plans in my office days. They never work out."
But asked if he would do it all over again — quit the stable job, take that life-changing audition — he shows zero hesitation. "Absolutely. This work, when the camera's rolling — that's when I feel most alive. Everything else, I can live without."
"The Informant" opens in theaters Dec. 3.
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com
