Bong Joon-ho on his inspirations: “John Hurt’s more than just an actor to me”
Bong Joon-ho is well on his way to legendary status. The South Korean director’s ‘Best Picture’ win for Parasite at the 2020 Oscars is already woven into the fabric of film folklore, and the rest of his catalogue, including the likes of Mother, The Host, and Memories of Murder, are outstanding examples of his own talent and how badly Western audiences had been sleeping on Asian filmmakers until very recently.
Success in his native country led to opportunities for Bong to work in the English language, thus broadening his appeal. His first non-Korean movie was 2013’s Snowpiercer, a dystopian sci-fi adventure about a train containing the last remnants of the human race. The story, which was adapted from a French graphic novel, features a mixture of Korean, American, and English stars, including Song Kang-ho, Chris Evans, and the late Sir John Hurt.
It was the last name that proved to be the most memorable for Bong, as he told Screen Daily while promoting the film. “John Hurt’s more than just an actor to me,” he gushed. “He told me how he’d seen Mother as a British Film Institute member, and he wanted to do all he could to make Snowpiercer a success. He brought so much support for me and his younger colleagues on set… there were scenes only he could have pulled off.”
In the movie, Hurt plays Gilliam, a spiritual leader with a prosthetic arm and leg. He serves as a mentor figure to Evans’ Curtis Everett and a symbol of hope for the poor and destitute occupants of the rear-end of the train. He inspired Everett to lead a revolution against the wealthy residents of the carriages further ahead and his death at the hands of mercenary Franco the Elder (Vlad Ivanov) is a major turning point in the plot.
The British star, whose most memorable credits include the wandmaker Garrick Ollivander in the ‘Harry Potter’ series and Kane, the first victim of a Chestburster in Alien, first appeared on Bong’s radar in The Elephant Man. Directed by David Lynch, the film stars Hurt as John Merrick, a man with facial disfigurements who is treated as a circus attraction in Victorian London. He was nominated for ‘Best Actor’ at the Oscars for his performance, which included the highly emotional “I am a human being” speech. When news of Hurt’s death in 2017 broke, an interview with Lynch in 1990 resurfaced, in which he called him “simply the greatest actor in the world.”
Bong may have been a fan of Hurt’s first, but by the end of their time working together, the feeling was most certainly mutual. “All the film crew refer to him, with great reverence, as ‘Director Bong’,” the actor told Bloody Disgusting before adding, “I love the fact that I am working for Director Bong.” In another interview, this time with Eye on Film, Hurt compared Bong’s technical skill with that of Alfred Hitchcock. “In humanitarian terms,” he added. “I think he is much cleverer. He is one of the best directors I’ve worked with. I absolutely adore working with him.
Hurt ended up playing a pivotal role in preserving the film for its US release. The Weinstein Company, which had acquired the American distribution rights for Snowpiercer, wanted to make a series of edits, requesting that action be prioritised over dialogue. Along with his co-star Tilda Swinton, Hurt spoke out about the planned cuts, and as a result, the movie was released in US cinemas unaltered.
