TVING Chef Legend Pop-Up Review: Must-Try Korean Food

Park Ji-hoon recently starred as the protagonist Kang Sung-jae in the TVING original drama "Legendary Cook Sergeant." The drama is a military cooking fantasy that depicts the growth of a private who, instead of a rifle, wields a kitchen knife and wears an apron instead of a bullet belt, becoming a "legendary cook sergeant." Immediately after its release, "Legendary Cook Sergeant" recorded the highest number of paid subscribers in its first week among TVING original dramas released in the last three years and succeeded in its box office run by ranking first in the number of paid subscribers for three consecutive weeks. Park Ji-hoon left his mark as a leading actor, navigating through comedic, fantasy, and coming-of-age narratives.

After earning the title of "10 Million Viewer Actor" with the film "The King and the Clown," which drew 16.88 million viewers upon its release in February of this year, Park Ji-hoon immediately presented "Legendary Cook Sergeant." He expanded his acting spectrum by portraying characters with completely different tones, from the weighty historical role of King Danjong to the cheerful cook sergeant Kang Sung-jae. Born in 1999, Park Ji-hoon debuted in 2006 with the MBC drama "Jumong" and gained public recognition through his appearance on Mnet's "Produce 101 Season 2" in 2017. At the time, he garnered attention for his wink at the end of the signal song performance and joined Wanna One, finishing in second place.

Despite a string of successful projects, Park Ji-hoon stated that his attitude, maintained since the beginning of his career, has not changed significantly. He cited his family as the reason, explaining that he grew up watching his family remain calm even when his father won third place in the lottery, and he believes he naturally became that way as well.

Regarding his portrayal of Kang Sung-jae, a character from a webtoon, Park Ji-hoon said, "When I read the webtoon, there were parts that differed from the script. In particular, the setting where Sung-jae meets many women felt different from the Sung-jae I imagined." He explained that he studied the script more than finishing the webtoon and focused on capturing Kang Sung-jae's naive and pure demeanor when he was first assigned to the unit, considering the difference in expression between the webtoon and the drama.

When asked about his current position as an actor, Park Ji-hoon likened it to the taste of food, stating that he feels he has only expressed sweet and bitter flavors so far. He expressed his ambition to show new sides of himself by experiencing various flavors he hasn't tried yet, such as villainous roles, truly bad characters, criminals, and noir genres. He added that even after earning the title of "10 Million Viewer Actor," there has been no internal change, and his greatest feeling is gratitude for gaining precious projects and good senior actors.