Joo Won is an actor known for taking on challenging roles. He aced the shuffling gait of the genius doctor with Asperger's syndrome in "Good Doctor." He mastered the action scenes when he played the reluctant freedom fighter in "Bridal Mask." In the last few years he has taken on the Patrick Swayze role in the musical version of "Ghost," played a special agent in "Level 7 Civil Servant" and now stars as a newly converted fashionista in "Fashion King."
His latest acting challenge is playing the part of a conductor in "Tomorrow Cantabile," the k-drama version of the manga and Japanese drama "Nodame Cantabile."
He did take piano and clarinet lessons when he was a boy but he admits that he was a reluctant student.
"The teacher would hit my hand with a ruler if I didn't place my hands on the right places on the piano, so I hated it," said Joo Won in an enewsworld interview. "I complained about going to piano lessons but now I regret it. Thankfully, my mother was learning music and made me take lessons as a young boy, so I think I have a sense of rhythm."
If he had stayed with those lessons it might have been easier to prepare for the role, it took him five months of learning the violin and practicing conducting to get ready for his role as genius musician Cha Woo Jin.
He practiced the violin in between performances of the musical "Ghost. "
"I would practice playing the violin in the waiting room, right before performing on stage," said Joo Won. "I started practicing conducting about five, six months ago too and it was fun, but difficult. I could have used a replacement actor but the viewers need to feel like I'm the one doing it so I practiced hard. It's fortunate that there hasn't been a problem filming. I was surprised watching the edited clips of myself."
He managed to impress Lee Jong Jin, who is a conductor and the musical director for the drama.
"I have seen how talented he is in many areas, and I even have the thought of roping him in to join our conducting profession," said Lee Jong Jin at a promotional event for the drama. "His ability is on the same level as our students studying conducting. Our students have to prepare a lot, and also have to do homework beforehand. But Joo Won was able to reach the standard that I was looking for in such a short period of time."
Although Joo Won was not the most dedicated of music students as a boy, the idea of being a conductor actually appeals to him.
"I once thought that I might want to be a conductor if I were born again," he said. "I think conducting is most interesting. I really enjoy listening to music. I realized what it means to be intoxicated by music. When tens of instruments surrounded me, I felt like the conductors must feel when they are intoxicated by the music they conduct. It's also charming to think that your ear gets so developed by listening to the music. I even think about making a future son into a conductor."
