Actor Namgoong Min Shares How His Psychotic K-Drama Role Affected His Real Personality

What makes K-Dramas so addicting that leave us binging until the crack of dawn, even when we really really shouldn’t? Well, the villains, of course. Often times, these villains boast some convincing-AF psychotic acting — and we end up helplessly hooked on the series.

Actor Namgoong Min, in his 2016 K-Drama Remember, had us all in a love-hate relationship with his role of Nam Gyu Man, the chaebol son with anger management issues.

He, as Nam Gyu Man, had us 200% convinced that he is the worst of all psychos we had seen in the history of K-Dramas.

And as thoroughly believable as Namgoong Min’s portrayal of the evil Nam Gyu Man had been, the role did take a toll on the actor overall.

In a previous episode of How To Eat and Live Well, show host Kim Su Ro asked Namgoong Min if the uncontrolled release of anger as Nam Gyu Man ever felt cathartic in any way. Namgoong Min shared that hadn’t been the case — but rather, he learned “Anger only keeps growing, the more it is expressed.”

I thought letting out all my emotions like that would relieve me somewhat. But speaking from experience… Anger only grows the more you express it. Like, for example, I noticed that even the most insignificant things began to agitate me a lot more than before.

— Namgoong Min

He then talked about a time the inner Nam Gyu Man popped out when his manager made a small driving mistake.

Once, my manager took a wrong turn. It wasn’t his fault, the GPS told him to go that way. And it really isn’t that big of a deal, you know? Everyone can make driving mistakes. But then… I became Nam Gyu Man for a second there. I said, ‘Are you serious? What am I going to do with you?’ in Nam Gyu Man’s tone of voice. It came out of nowhere, but I definitely didn’t mean to say it that way.

— Namgoong Min

Namgoong Min concluded that anger is actually best when managed and expressed in reasonable amounts.