What Are You Striving to Achieve in Hollywood?

After portraying Hae-sung in Past Lives and earning a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor this year, Teo’s next destination has just been revealed: Hollywood’s action blockbuster Karoshi. We caught up with Teo in Korea just before he departs for the U.S. to begin the intense filming process for Karoshi.

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-Recently, news broke about your casting as the lead in the Hollywood action film Karoshi. What made you choose this as your next project?

=After Past Lives, many people in the American film industry were curious about my next steps. In turn, I often posed a question back. Having studied acting for over 20 years, I have a strong grasp of 20th-century American cinema, and a sense of how Asian actors have been cast over time. That's why I asked them back. Traditionally, Asian male actors have often been relegated to roles as mysterious figures or as detective characters like Charlie Chan—stripped of a natural masculinity and viewed more as plot devices than fully human characters. Because of this, I made a firm decision to avoid stereotypical martial arts or comedic roles. When the offer for Karoshi came, it checked all the boxes of what I was looking for. The film had a distinct and refreshing twist that set it apart from other action films, making it an obvious choice. It felt like a stroke of good fortune falling right into my lap.

-How would you assess your current standing as an actor in the U.S. market?

=I make it a point to tell everyone wherever I go—I’m not a one-hit wonder. I’m not someone who will appear suddenly and then disappear. To ensure that, I’ve studied how Western and Eastern film industries perceive masculinity. My task is to accurately grasp the unique qualities that each market finds appealing and to find that elusive middle ground. It’s a challenge shaped by my multicultural background; having been born in Germany and lived all over, I carry this complex sense of identity. In some ways, it leaves me with a feeling of not fully belonging anywhere.

-It seems like Hae-sung in Past Lives captured that elusive middle ground quite well.

=Hae-sung in Past Lives is probably one of the first Asian male characters to appeal as a romantic lead to white women. While Asian men have been portrayed as significant action characters in films like those from the Marvel universe or as attractive mixed-race characters, like Henry Golding in Crazy Rich Asians, there hasn’t been an example of an Asian man resonating romantically across both Western and Eastern audiences. For instance, when a middle-aged woman in America’s heartland sees Hae-sung and thinks, “I’d be happy to have him as my son-in-law”—that’s an Asian portrayal breaking through racial boundaries in a way we haven’t seen before.

-In the recent variety show Music Adventure By Accident, your cowboy look felt like something we hadn’t seen before—almost like an Asian lead in a Western.

=The Western genre is one I’ve always loved. From Dances with Wolves, which I watched as a kid, to recent hits like Yellowstone, I’ve admired Kevin Costner and Taylor Sheridan’s work (Yellowstone, Sicario, Wind River are directed and written by Sheridan- note by editor). I also thoroughly enjoyed Old Henry, which came out a few years ago. Growing up in Germany, I was exposed to a lot of German-Italian-Spanish Westerns, or “macaroni Westerns”. I watched everything from Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci classics to B-grade comedies like Terence Hill’s My Name Is Nobody and the Trinity series. But the more I watched, the more I felt the disappointment of knowing that, as a Korean, there was no real opportunity for me to be part of a historical Western with authentic characters. So, starting about three years ago, I began mentioning in variety show meetings that I wanted to truly experience the West—and this time, it finally came to fruition.

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-As part of the Music Adventure By Accident project, you recorded and released the country song <Texas Summer>. Do you plan to continue pursuing music?

=While filming Karoshi, I have a goal of spending my days off outside the city, creating a country repertoire with my own songs. There’s never been an Asian artist who’s truly emerged as a country singer in the American heartland market. I’m still composing country and folk music, and I’m practicing country fingerpicking. I’d like to write about my immigrant experience in an honest, diary-like way. A Korean from Germany singing American music in English—doesn’t that sound intriguing?

-What drew you to focus on country music?

=Country music originated as the voice of the working class; songs sung by everyday people. It’s like how we have trot music in Korea. Even when I was in Germany, I was exposed to folk music and yodeling music of the people. I’m the son of first-generation immigrant miners and nurses, and from 1990 to 1995, my parents ran a restaurant with a space for live band performances and dancing. Every weekend, seniors would come by to dance, and sometimes we’d even hear gypsy music. So, the spirit of country music aligns closely with my own experiences. For me, it’s a way to express my real story in a way I can’t as an actor—it feels like a meaningful release.

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-You’re known to be a movie enthusiast. What kinds of films do you watch, and how do you usually watch them?

=I watch a bit of everything. I keep up with content across platforms—TVING, Watcha, Wavve, Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube. For international films that aren’t distributed in Korea, I buy DVDs. I started collecting DVDs back when Netflix was still a DVD rental service, and because I have a strong collector’s instinct, I spent nearly all my pocket money on DVDs. (Laughs) Since I started acting at 21, I made it a goal to watch at least two movies before bed. For about two and a half to three years, I watched movies for over four hours every night. Now, my home library has over 6,000 DVDs, all organized by director, actor, and genre. I even have a DVD of a film Quentin Tarantino made while working at a video store—I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in Korea who owns it.

- Do you have any plans to direct again after Log in Belgium?

= Not at the moment. Directing takes up too much time. I’m more inclined to build the kind of filmography I envision as a producer and have more control over my acting career.

-What is the fundamental reason behind your dedication to studying film history, employing various strategies, and striving for success as an actor?

=The first reason comes from a personal sense of lack—something rooted in my family history. The second is that having lived around the world, I came to believe that transcending language barriers to convey a certain sensitivity is one of the most profound and equitable things one can do. As I thought about what it would mean to universally move people, to have that kind of influence over human emotions, I found myself drawn to acting. In a way, it’s an enormous ambition.

-In a previous interview, you mentioned that your goal is to become a “superstar”. What does that mean to you?

=I had a conversation about this with my current U.S. manager when we first met in 2018. We discussed how, a hundred years from now, young people probably won’t look back at Marvel movies and think they’re profound. That made me seriously consider what a truly meaningful film, performance, and career might look like. For me, that narrowed down to just two role models: Tom Cruise, Hollywood’s last action hero, and Keanu Reeves. When I was 14, I happened to read a biography of Tom Cruise. I learned that at 21, he reviewed the Top Gun script and said he’d only do the film if he could make changes to the script. Having that kind of guts in the heart of Hollywood at such a young age is what enabled him to build a system where he now oversees everything—from planning and production to starring. I may not manage every aspect of production like Cruise, but I want to become an actor who understands the production process and has the credibility to inspire and persuade others.

-Why Keanu Reeves?

=If you look at the franchises Keanu Reeves has been involved in, they started as independent films by American standards, not initially intended as franchises. That’s the case with both The Matrix and Constantine series. His eye for projects is remarkable. A groundbreaking, philosophical film like The Matrix is exactly the kind of movie people will go back to a hundred years from now. I love Constantine so much that, when I heard about a sequel two weeks ago, I immediately reached out to my agent in the U.S. to ask if there’s a role I could fit into—I told them I absolutely need to be in a film with Keanu Reeves. (Laughs)

-A spontaneous question—if you could star in any film in history or be reborn as any actor, what would you choose?

=Instinctively, I’d say Buster Keaton. He had a profound impact on modern cinema. The recent film I, the Executioner pays homage to Jackie Chan’s stunts where objects fall perilously close to him—a style Chan himself adopted from Keaton. What Keaton created has been replicated and reimagined for over a century. I’m genuinely curious about how much introspection it must have taken for someone like him to become a foundational figure, almost an archetype, in cinema.

Boxed Feature: Teo Yoo’s Top 5 Recent Watches

If we’re talking about recent watches, definitely1883. Then there’s Chloé Zhao’s The Rider and Potsy Ponciroli’s Old Henry. Yes, they’re all Westerns. (Laughs) It might seem a bit cliché, so I wanted to pick something different, but I’ll have to go with Perfect Days. I watched the final scene at Cinecube (an art-house theater in Seoul-note by translator) and couldn’t stop crying. Among the big films, the only one that comes to mind is Top Gun: Maverick. It took on the tough task of updating a classic that could have felt outdated, making it feel both like an old and a new film at the same time and it succeeded brilliantly.

Written by Lee Woo-bin, Photos by Baek Jong-heon, Translated by Jang Yuri