2PM Chansung’s
‘Real Time’ Started Flowing (Interview Part 1)
Chansung is a
man who wants to run slowly and steadily. He never thought either about running
ahead of 2PM’s popularity or about passing the basic course with a free-ride
using his title of an ‘idol’. Chansung is only running without putting energy
but with sincerity. He has been in a clear demeanor for music and acting while
running these past 1-2 years. Now the young man who has been running while
looking what lies in the future, will now stop and look into what he exactly
wants. Chansung’s real time started flowing.
Q. An
interview right after you came back from attending ‘Mnet Asian Music Awards
(MAMA)’ held in Hongkong. 2PM World Tour was also overlapping with your movie
promotion. Have you ever thought that you’d become a man in your 20 having such
a busy schedule.
Chansung:
Absolutely no. (laughs) I couldn’t predict it at all.
Q. What
is this current busy schedule for. An investment for your future? A work you
enjoy doing? Or just something you eventually have to do because it is a schedule?
Chansung: I think everything of my
schedule does have its meaning. It’d be hard for you if only work your body
without such a thought. And also, I’m able to concentrate more on the work
given to me by thinking ‘To be doing this kind of job is the goal of my life’.
Q. Does
that mean you have now felt like ‘A career as a singer is the path I have to
walk on’?
Chansung: It would be more exact to put
that kind of thought in more definite words. I’ve debuted for 9 years. (7 years
as 2PM) I have encountered many problems in that 9 years. My thoughts turned
negative whenever it’s hard on me. Sometimes when I felt sorry to the staff, I
would think ‘Do these people really care for me?’ At certain moment, I did
realize that those thoughts are useless. But rather than negative thoughts, I
would address them as poison that gnaw at me. After I realized that they
brought negative influences to my mind, my point-of-view on things would
change.
Q. Even
when you realize that those negative thoughts are useless, it won’t be easy to
change them. How did you start changing them.
Chansung:
There is a psychology teacher who gives mental care at the company. Everyone in
JYP starting from trainees to employees receive mental care as compensation but
I’m originally an optimistic person. On the day when I met the teacher for the
first time, he gave a checked mark on the self-diagnosis for mental health
checklist. After I saw it, our conversation went “You’re happy eventhough
you’re working right?” “Yes” “No discontent right?” “Yes” “You don’t need any
particular mental care, and you seem to be interested in psychology so let’s
study together”. Since then, I started learning psychology with him. It has
been 3 years since then.
Q. I wonder if you’re
interested in psychology because you’re curious about other people’s mental
state, or because you want to know your own.
Chansung: Both of them. I usually have
many things I question about myself. Worries like ‘Why did I act like that?’
‘Why did I have such thought then?’ came to me periodically. At such time, I’d
listen to the teacher’s advice, read the book he recommeded and my tangle
thoughts would be settled.
Q. Do you also feel a
bit comfortable about other people too? Like figuring the mental state of
others.
Chansung: I’m
not able to see through others’ state of mind just yet. But, I’m able to
understand deeper. For example, let’s say there is this someone who does a very
particular action. Then I’d think ‘That person will also get recognition
through that action’
Q. You said that
thinking ‘This career is a path I have to walk on’ won’t get you more than 1 or
2 years so I wonder was there a possibility for you to have a different job
before.
Chansung: I
didn’t have such thought at all. It’s like I was just working hard. Now is
different. My attitude toward my job have become more set.
Q. Acting is also
there on your path and actually you became an actor before a singer.
Chansung: True.
I was in ‘Unstoppable Highkick’.
Q. In recent 2 months,
you appeared in two movies, ‘Red Carpet’ and ‘Deoksuri 5 Brothers’. Before the
interest died down for one movie, another one had already been released, I
think that could be either unfortunate or on the contrary, aggressively good.
Which one is it.
Chansung: I
filmed for ‘Red Carpet’ in late summer right after I was finished with ‘7th
Grade Civil Servant’ (2013). Not long after, I started filming for ‘Deoksuri 5
Brothers’. I actually didn’t know that the release of these two movies would be
so close to each other. With the releases were postponed I thought none of them
would be released this year. I feel relieved as both of them were released like
this.
