'I've never once gotten what I aimed for,' Park Jung-min says

Park Jung-min does not seem like a man who just became the most talked-about actor in Korea.

"They've got the wrong guy," he says on Monday at a cafe in Samcheong-dong, Seoul. "I'm more of an antisocial type. I genuinely have no idea what's happening."

It all goes back to last year's Blue Dragon Awards, the country's premier year-end film ceremony. Park bounded onstage to perform alongside singer Hwasa and turned an otherwise routine event into a national meme.

He walked away empty-handed despite dual nominations, but the performance was all anyone remembered. Women decided he was the ex-boyfriend they never got over.

The fame has mostly shown up in small doses. Friends calling to say he'd finally blown up ("So what was I doing for the past 15 years?" he wonders aloud). A couple more autograph requests.

"At least my dad likes it," he says.

Has the actor thought about capitalizing on the moment?

"I've never once gotten what I aimed for in life," he says. "So at some point I just stopped aiming. Whatever this is, it'll pass."

He apparently means it. Park runs through a list of things he'd chased and missed — the college he wanted to get into, the film school that rejected him, the early career choices that went nowhere.

"The moment you set a goal and go after it, and it doesn't work out, the sense of emptiness is crushing," he says. "You can't even appreciate the journey because you're so fixated on the destination. That used to make me really depressed. So I stopped doing it."

What he's found, 15 years into the business, is that the things that stuck were the ones he never planned for.

"Everything I have right now came from stuff I wasn't even planning on" he says. "An unexpected gift here, a random spotlight there. I didn't chase any of it. It just showed up."

So what comes next for the hottest star in the country? Nothing. Park took a sabbatical in 2025 to run Books Muze, his independent publishing house, and has nothing filmed for the year ahead.

"The karma from last year's break is about to hit," he says. "You're not going to see me for a while."

At least the publishing side of things is doing okay. The company is finding its footing as a boutique literary publisher with a growing roster of writers and a staff of three.

Park has one rule: Love the writers, no matter what.

"Our biggest asset is our authors," he says. "Whatever they say, we don't push back."

The work feeds into his acting in unexpected ways, too. "If you're stuck in one place too long, your vision narrows," he says. "Going back and forth, hot water and cold water. You grow up a little."

"I've never once gotten what I chased. You just do what's in front of you, and maybe something turns up.

"For now, I just hope 'Humint' does well. That's it."