After a long wait, Yoon Si-yoon’s interview for ARENA is out, at last! Too bad the magazine only shared small-sized images for the pictorial online, and I bet that there are lots of B-cuts they did not release :3 I guess we should be thankful that even with Mirror of the Witch coming to an end last week, we still get to see him every Sunday on 2 Days 1 Night. Enjoy the interview!

Yoon Si-yoon, No Matter What They Say

31-year old Yoon Si-yoon’s dream is, as always, an icon of hope.

The time gap between your discharge from army and your comeback was very short.

I really wanted to work. I was impatient. It was through working nonstop from my debut that I found myself and my own worth. It was like losing myself when I couldn’t work while I was doing my service in the military.

It must have been an unfamiliar time for you.

Yes, that’s right. I am a person who will feel comfortable planning things in advance; someone who will think and ask questions, putting effort instead of lazing around. Army service seemed to have suppressed that side of me.

Still, it feels that the person Yoon Si-yoon is even more apparent than before: someone who is intensely doing his own soul-searching. 

That’s what I feel too. I’ve become clearer, in the sense that I try to thoroughly eliminate the parts that are not like myself and show the real me. It is easier to abandon and adopt them compared to before.

We would not ask what were the things you abandoned. What were the things you have adopted?

In the past, I would try to cover my flaws. But then, after getting into the professional world, I come to realize that it’s more important to turn those flaws into merits. Covering our flaws will actually make them even more glaring. Hence, my thoughts have changed. I adopted and fully embraced my flaws. I’d rather show different sides of me, including those I have never shown before.

2 Days 1 Night is a program with being tricky and stretched fun as its core. Now, you have created a rhythm that is totally different compared to the first time Yoon Si-yoon appeared on the show. The members even commented that you are a strange kid. 

Haha. Am I really strange? Those unique people are actually saying that I am the strange one..

If we are to talk about Yoon Si-yoon’s attitude in variety program, it is kind of strange. Your usual kind of fun is different and rough, plus your funny parts do not feel ordinary. It has been a while since the last time we saw a healthy and positive character who throws in a few laughs on a variety program. 

I don’t really know if I’m really a healthy and positive person. I think that the word that describes me the best is ‘analog’. I’m simple like an old machine. My objective is simple and I really can’t be excessive. It’s also like that when it comes to romantic relationship and dating. I’m someone who can’t do sophisticated pickup lines. (HAHAHAHA!)

You always say that you are not a refined person. You even mentioned in one interview that you are not someone who is fit to act out a refined character. 

I certainly want to become an actor who can act well one day. But now, I think that saying I want to act well is an arrogant statement for myself. The best thing I can do at the moment is to show an acting without any lies. Only through that, people should get to know me, and I should try to find myself by brushing up the ‘me’ inside myself. That’s why, after brushing up myself, I find out what kind of person I really am. I’m still far from being a refined person.

Suddenly, words from High Kick Through the Roof‘s PD Kim Byung-wook come to our mind, “Yoon Si-yoon carried the gaze of a 1980s boy who falls in a one-sided love”.

Yes. If I am to fall in love again now, I will fall into that kind of feeling. Heo Joon’s character I portrayed in the drama Mirror of the Witch was exactly like that. He went back and forth even when he liked someone, and he didn’t really know what he should really do to make that person he liked happy. (Like…a clueless boyfriend type?)

Heo Joon became a wild playboy for a short moment in Mirror of the Witch. Is that image far from your real image?

Wah, no. Why did you think like that? Do you think I only play Korean shuttlecock game (jegichagi) to pass time? (LOL XD)

Well, you do seem like you will pass time healthily.

To tell you the truth, that’s exactly what I do; each time I’m stressed out, I will go to comic store to read lots of comic books, watch movies, or visit art galleries to release my stress. That’s why I enjoyed acting out the wild Heo Joon. He was surrounded by and even buried under the ladies…haha! (I’m dying at his cheekiness kekekeke)

Heo Joon is this kind of person who will throw himself out to be sacrificed for the sake of the person he loved. Is this close to your real self?

It’s close. I mean the point of loving someone wholeheartedly. But then, someone who loves like this is, in the end, longing to receive that kind of love from the person he loves. I’m neither a very selfless nor pure man; I’m just a lacking man. (Awwww) I wanted to convey Heo Joon’s shortcomings and his way of loving someone with sincerity. Giving his all, wishing that the person he loved would never leave his side; that kind of love. (Now I’m sad thinking of Joon and his bittersweet love with Yeon-hee ㅜㅜ)

Isn’t that the most basic form of love?

You’re right. That’s the form of love that I do. Hence, I wanted to express that image through Mirror of the Witch.

Your drama comeback through Mirror of the Witch as Heo Joon is like having you stand up and declare that you are acting as your own self.

I didn’t view Mirror of the Witch as a historical drama. To me, it was just a fantasy drama. Fantasy is a fiction with the freedom to tell any kind of story. There is no restriction on how the story will go on. It is a good place for an actor to find answers by himself and having faith in the story as he goes on.

Although it was a fantasy drama, the viewers acquired a sense of reality from the drama through the characters portrayed by Yoon Si-yoon and Kim Sae-ron. 

Both (Kim) Sae-ron and I are gifted with brightness to our image. Conversely, no matter how heavy and dark it was; no matter how hard it was to save the characters in the story…either way, we both carried unique colours thanks to that brightness. Mirror of the Witch‘s story line was sad and dark. Even when the characters were driven deep into the darkness, our brightness and the light through our characters’ relationship in the drama made the drama more vivid. That seemed to be the roles entrusted to me and Sae-ron in the drama. The director said that he fully entrusted the role to me, believing that I would be able to express my real feelings through the drama. ‘Do it just like what you’re thinking. Your words are right.’ That was what he said. Those words gave me great strength.

Do you still think that a project that is warm in people’s eyes suit you the best? Could it be that the reason for it was because of the image public associates you with?

I want to live as someone who is seen as and associated with warmth. Hence, I’m putting more effort to become a warm person. The inclination to do projects seen as warm is actually the dream of human Yoon Si-yoon as an actor. Human is the most interesting thing in the world to me, and human is the warmest thing in the whole world.

That is something we have not heard for a long while. No, I think it is the first time we heard something like that – human is the warmest thing.

Human can be the seeds of conflict too. But then, I believe that the answer and solution to the conflict is within the human too.

In the past, there was this dream which you had as an actor. You wanted to become the keyword for hope. We want to ask: do you think that having such a positive and healthy outlook will enable you to conquer the world? Do you truly believe that?

Hope is, in my opinion, when we have our respective roles in our own lives but we still live with beautiful minds. Even when life doesn’t go well, I wish that with significant thoughts, it will be a source of hope to conquer the world. Have you seen the movie Inside Out? Isn’t it the most beautiful thing to see different emotions – happiness, anger, sadness – all mixed up in one’s life? I wish I could express it again and again that all lives matter and equally beautiful, especially through dramas.

Since when you changed into this firm person you are today?

Only my words are firm; I am still very green, full of anxiety, terror, sadness, fear, and dread. I worry for my next project and then worry about saying wrong things. Nowadays, I’ve come to realize some things, little by little. At one point, when you start to act according to what you’re aware of, isn’t that the moment you will become a real adult?

Where do you think you are at this point in the whole life as Yoon Si-yoon?

Right now..just like I’m done with warming up? At the moment of yelling out ‘Okay, good. Now, let’s go!’ I’m at the point where I have stretched my body to find out exactly what I can and cannot do. For instance, these days, I have decided to show properly the countrified side of me. I’m really a countrified person. I’m unnecessarily serious and I would be serious like that even when I’m meeting women. I wish I can be smooth at making jokes. (Just like someone I know… 😉 )

Credit to ARENA HOMME+ Korea