Park Ji-hoon on 'The Legend of Kitchen Soldier' and Avoiding the 'Box Office Star' Trap

"I really hate it when people act full of themselves. To be honest, I find it disgusting."

That is how Park Ji-hoon, the lead of the TVING original series "The Legend of Kitchen Soldier" (Chwisabyeong Jeonseori Doeda), described his attitude toward newfound fame during an interview at a cafe in Seoul's Jongno district on December 2.

"The Legend of Kitchen Soldier" is a military cooking fantasy drama. Instead of a rifle and ammo belt, a private named Kang Sung-jae carries a kitchen knife and wears an apron, and the show follows his rise into a "legendary army cook." Park leads the series as Kang, an ordinary recruit who suddenly gains a mysterious ability and grows into the title role.

The show landed strong out of the gate. According to TVING, it drew the most paid subscribers in its first week of any TVING original drama in the past three years. It then held the No. 1 spot for paid-subscriber contribution for three straight weeks. Park moved between comedy, fantasy and a coming-of-age arc with ease, adding another credit to a fast-growing résumé.

The drama arrived almost immediately after Park's February film "The King and I" (Wanggwa Saneun Namja) crossed 16.88 million admissions in South Korea, a benchmark that earned him the local "10-million ticket actor" tag. Going from the heavy historical weight of King Danjong in a sageuk, or period drama, to the cheerful Kang Sung-jae in a streaming comedy showed a wide range in a short stretch of time.

Born in 1999, Park debuted as a child actor in the 2006 MBC drama "Jumong" before breaking through to mainstream audiences on Mnet's 2017 idol survival show "Produce 101 Season 2." A single wink at the end of the signal song stage became one of the most-replayed moments of the season. In the first ranking announcement, he was the only trainee out of 101 to pass one million votes and took the No. 1 spot. He never dropped below third for the rest of the series and finished second overall, joining the project group Wanna One.

Asked what has changed after the back-to-back successes of "The King and I" and "The Legend of Kitchen Soldier," Park said not much has. He did note that scripts and offers have started arriving in noticeably wider shapes. "There are a lot more project offers coming in than before," he said. "Everything from a regular office worker to a villain. I haven't been able to read through all the scripts yet."

He was direct about why he wants to stay grounded. "Of course an actor can contribute to a project's success, but a project is really the result of a huge crew and cast working together," Park said. "I hate the idea of acting like I did it all by myself." He added with a laugh, "I also hate the thought of seeing myself walking around with my shoulders puffed up just because I'm now called a '10-million ticket actor.'"

The moment that made the scale of the film hit home, he said, came from an old friend. "I usually don't check reactions on social media," Park said. "But a really close friend of mine works at a regular company, and he told me people at work were talking about 'Wangsanam' so much that he couldn't keep up with the conversation if he didn't watch it." His friend eventually saw it and reported back. "He said, 'I watched it. I cried,'" Park recalled. "Hearing that made me realize, 'Oh, a lot of people really did see this. The project really worked.'"

Park said his secret to staying in character is simple: reading the script slowly. "I really take my time with the script. I look at every line carefully and build the image in my head," he said. "By the time I finish one script, I'm completely drained."

"I fill my head with the script," he continued. "What would I be like if I were this person? How would my scene partner deliver this line? How would I react? I keep imagining it. If the other actor is already cast, I go back and watch their previous work. That whole process is my way of preparing."

He also said pressure over box office numbers does not weigh on him. "I don't think I'm someone who carries that kind of pressure around," Park said. "When a project ends, I take a moment to refresh, and I treat the next project as a completely separate thing."

"I'm really grateful that so many people enjoyed it. But inside, I don't think anything has changed," he said. "I'm just doing the job in front of me. Being loved like this matters to me, but I'm trying to hold on to the same mindset I had before."

Across two very different projects in a single year, Park Ji-hoon has landed in a place most young Korean actors spend their whole careers chasing. What he seems most interested in is making sure that position does not start dictating who he is on set.