Oh Jung-se on 'Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness': 'I wanted to deliver every precious word'

Oh Jung-se plays Park Gyeong-se in writer Park Hae-young's latest drama series

A film director consumed by insecurity and anxiety

'Pathetic, but impossible to hate'

'Long years of obscurity? I never doubted my own worth'

Actor Oh Jung-se as "Park Gyeong-se" in JTBC's "Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness" [Provided by Prain TPC]

Park Gyeong-se was, in many ways, a face audiences had come to know well from Oh Jung-se.

A film director with five features to his name, Gyeong-se bristles at the presence of his old friend Hwang Dong-man (played by Koo Kyo-hwan) — a man who has yet to direct a single film and talks far more than he delivers. Despite having reached what others would call success, Gyeong-se is gripped by a nameless anxiety and a deep sense of inferiority. Watching him, it is hard not to think of Kwon Gyeong-min from SBS's "Stove League" — a man warped by his hunger for recognition — or No Gyu-tae from KBS's "When the Camellia Blooms," a small-minded figure who was equal parts funny and pitiable.

Where does that unease come from — the discomfort of watching a friend you once considered far behind you begin to pull ahead? Why does Gyeong-se stand so unsteadily on the very ground called success? The recently concluded JTBC drama series "Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness" (also known by its abbreviated title "Mojamusa") is at once the story of protagonist Dong-man and film company producer Byeon Eun-a (played by Go Youn-jung), and a coming-of-age arc tracing Gyeong-se's long climb out of inferiority — the journey of a man who had succeeded but was not happy.

After the series wrapped, this reporter met Oh Jung-se at a location in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The conversation ranged freely — from the inner life of Gyeong-se and what Oh brought to the role, to his own long years of obscurity and his personal reckoning with the feeling of worthlessness. His answers, delivered in a calm and unhurried voice, were candid and unadorned, quietly illuminating the thoughts and emotions of Oh Jung-se the person.

A still from "Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness" [Provided by Studio Phoenix, SLL, Studio Flow]

"I loved the title from the start — 'Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness.' I thought anyone who has ever struggled to find their own value would be able to relate to it."

Early in its run, the series divided viewers. Writer Park Hae-young's characteristically slow pacing — familiar from her previous works "My Mister" and "My Liberation Notes" — and the uncomfortable emotions at its core, jealousy and inferiority, raised the barrier to entry. Above all, characters who offered little easy warmth made audiences hesitate.

As the weeks passed, though, what had seemed like pettiness began to read as relatable inadequacy. Lines carved deep and slow became mirrors reflecting emotions viewers had kept hidden. The series built a devoted following, and ratings that had opened in the 2 percent range climbed to 5.3 percent in the finale — a meaningful upward arc. The show's 12-episode journey, too, resembled the honest and unvarnished process of a life in which one must prove one's own worth.

Gyeong-se was not exempt from the show's gallery of difficult characters. His inability to genuinely celebrate a friend's success — and the moments when he came across as downright petty — made him seem almost unworthy of the title of film director. The trouble was that those feelings of smallness felt uncomfortably familiar. And yet pointing a finger at him felt equally uneasy.

"Gyeong-se has directed five films, but inside he is terrified of falling and consumed by the desire to climb higher. The drama heightens it, but I think a lot of people are not so different from him. For some people, five films is success. For others, getting into university is success. But even within that, people are still struggling and striving."

Oh Jung-se said he knew from the moment he first received the script that he had to be part of this project. The size of the role did not matter. He described the feeling as similar to finishing a good book. His goal in taking on the role was singular: to deliver to viewers everything he had read and felt in those pages.

"My first priority was not to lose a single precious word — to convey each one faithfully. But setting that as a 100 percent target created its own kind of obsession. I felt that even within long stretches of dialogue, the emotion and a sense of freedom had to stay alive. So at some point I started giving myself about 2 percent of breathing room."

Beside the perpetually anxious Gyeong-se stands his wife Do Hye-jin (played by Kang Mal-geum) — a woman who seems like she would not fall even in a typhoon. Because Hye-jin holds all of Gyeong-se's worst qualities without flinching, his outbursts sometimes come across as almost endearing.

That made it all the more natural that viewers erupted in criticism when Gyeong-se developed an ambiguous dynamic with a junior writer. Oh offered what amounted to a defense — though he was careful not to frame it as one.

"I think viewers felt Gyeong-se was heading somewhere he shouldn't. But from where I stood as the actor, I didn't think of her as a woman — I thought of her as someone who made me come alive creatively. And in the drama, there was always a monitor between them, wasn't there? I saw that as a device to show that their connection was one between creators, not a romantic bond between a man and a woman."

Even so, Gyeong-se is hard to hate. At some point, you find yourself rooting for him as he flails on the edge. That is because, in the end, he does not hide his failings and his shame — he finds the courage to confess them.

"He is someone who has spent years quietly suffering over the fact that he debuted on someone else's story, and who ultimately finds the courage to confess it. Someone who has spent his whole life scrambling to be first, but can now say that third place is good enough. I think it is precisely that courage that keeps him from being simply hateable."

Oh Jung-se made his debut in a minor role in the 1997 film "Father." For nearly 20 years after that, he endured in bit parts and supporting roles before the 2017 film "Fabricated City" finally brought him wider public attention. Asked whether he had ever felt a sense of worthlessness during those years, he shook his head without hesitation.

"There were times I was worn out and discouraged, but I never thought of myself as worthless. I had a firm conviction that I wanted to work for a long time, over the long haul. Even when I kept failing auditions, I thought, 'I'm a good actor — it's their loss for not casting me.' There were times I actually felt sorry for the people who didn't pick me."

With "Mojamusa" barely finished, Oh Jung-se is already preparing to step back in front of audiences — as Bulgae, a master of drunken fist, in the new MBC drama series "Fifty Percent," and as Seong-gon, the ballad prince, in the upcoming film "Wild Thing." Nourished by the emotional fullness that "Mojamusa" left behind, he is ready to walk toward his next projects.

"Encountering those precious lines, sitting with them, wrestling with them — it was a time when I felt genuinely full, emotionally. I feel like I've been stocked with the kind of emotional sustenance that will keep me going for a long time. If there is anyone out there fighting their own worthlessness, I sincerely hope they watch this series and find in it both empathy and comfort."

balme@heraldcorp.com