Nam Joo Hyuk might as well have been dropped here straight from a movie.
I mean, if we’re being technical then he’s straight from a supernatural Netflix show from a fictional Joseon era, but the K-drama girlies know what I mean. Dressed down in a black t-shirt and his signature floppy hair, the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree has changed little in the three years he’s been away from our screens, and for that we are appreciative.
How Nam Joo Hyuk Got Here
Like many artists of his time, Nam Joo Hyuk was almost never an actor. Growing up in Busan, he trained for basketball quite seriously through middle school before a fracture ended that path abruptly. Two surgeries later, he pivoted to modelling at nineteen before his screen debut in 2014.
By 2015, Who Are You: School 2015 had put him in front of a significant domestic audience. By 2016, Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo had turned him into a star while Start-Up (2020) extended his reach internationally through Netflix.
Twenty-Five Twenty-One (2022), in which he played the journalist Baek Yi-jin across an eleven-year arc from his early twenties to his early thirties, is the role that critics and viewers most closely associate with the emotional register he is capable of at his best.
The East Palace is his first role back after his discharge from the military in 2024, and immediately topped Netflix’s Korea charts, earning a 100% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer.
What Gu-cheon Required Of Him
In The East Palace, currently streaming on Netflix, Nam plays Gu-cheon, a man who can traverse the realm of spirits but whose gift is more of a debilitating condition than a superpower. A KDrama Demon Hunter, if you will.
"He starts off very devastated and he gets even more worn out and devastated as he goes along," Nam tells me, through translator Park Hyewon. The character's physical and spiritual deterioration is part of what drew Nam in.
"One of the reasons why I really fell in love with the character when I first read the script was exactly because he was very much different from the typical characters we saw in the period pieces in the past," he says.
Gu-cheon is arrogant, conspicuously misplaced in the palace hierarchy, and in some sneaky ways, dryly funny, in stark contrast to co-star Roh Yoon Seo’s more determined, earnest portrayal of court lady Saeng Gang.
Nam adds that he wanted to play Gu-cheon as "a more free-spirited character in the palace," which, given that the palace in The East Palace is essentially a haunted bureaucracy run on hierarchy and dread, kind of makes Gu-cheon its most interesting person already.
When I suggest the dry delivery sounds like it might just be Nam's own sense of humour bleeding through, he disagrees. "In my real life, I'm not as dry when I throw my jokes," he says, explaining it’s more him holding back on purpose as Gu-cheon loses more and more of himself to the spirit world. "He still struggles to keep that sense of humour. So I think I wanted to portray that in a dry way as much as possible."
On CGI, Tennis Balls And Having A Wild Imagination
The East Palace is the most CGI-heavy production of his career, heavier than Bride of the Water God (2017), in which he played an actual deity, so that’s saying something. The spirits Gu-cheon interacts with throughout the series were invisible on set. "This made me realize how important it is for an actor to let their imagination run wild, especially when it comes to a series that's so CGI heavy," he says. “But fortunately, I consider myself a very imaginative person.”
He is generous about the production design, which he credits with doing roughly 80% of the imaginative work for him — the soundscape, the art direction, the props creating a world solid enough to throw himself into.
The series is chock full of supernatural happenings, with evil and malicious beings (both human and not) around every corner. Not a great place for an imaginative mind to inhabit, I say.
Fortunately (or not?) for Nam, he didn’t have too much time to dwell on too many possibilities because what with the underwater scenes, stunt sequences and relentless shooting schedules, he crashed as soon as he got home. “When I opened my eyes, it was already morning,” he laughs.
For what it's worth, he does not believe in ghosts. Asked directly whether he believes in forces of good and evil, he shoots off about seven rapid-fire "I don'ts" before clarifying, "I don't believe in anything unless I've seen it with my own eyes and verified them."
The Stranger Things Question
Much of the events in The East Palace take place in the parallel realm of Gwi or spirits. (You would perhaps recognize ‘gwi’ from ‘Gwi-ma’, the demon ruler from KPop Demon Hunters.)
The Gwi Realm is a desolate, crimson wasteland littered with malevolent presence, so naturally there have been comparisons to that other little Netflix show called Stranger Things. Nam, who loves Stranger Things himself, isn’t too bothered. "Just the fact to be mentioned alongside such an amazing series like that is such a great honour," he says. "It also seems to me like a great sign that our series is heading the right way because it means that it gave a lot of food for thought to a lot of people."
"I'm having the time of my life these days."
Eleven Years In, Still Looking Forward
Nam started working on screen at 21, which makes this his eleventh year in the industry, during which he has been in rom-coms, youth dramas, crime thrillers and supernatural period dramas. "Back when I was 21, I think I was focused more on the future," he says. "I wanted to make the most out of my ten years to come." He pauses.
"I would say I lived up to my expectations to a certain extent, but not 100%."
What he wants now, as 32 year old Nam Joo Hyuk, is stronger characters. "Rather than those that are really grounded and close to home, I want to try out a character that has a strong personality that really sticks up," he says. Then, with a familiar impish smile, "In terms of the genre, I would like to say rom-coms."
And the crowd says a resounding yes, I tell him. Nam Joo Hyuk grins again. "You have to give the fans what they want."