Yeon Sang-ho, director of Netflix’s upcoming dystopian series Hellbound, revealed that he had written #Alive’s Yoo Ah-in’s role with the actor in mind.
During a recent press conference, Yeon and the cast of Hellbound spoke about some of the key elements and characters in the forthcoming Netflix original. The series stars Yoo Ah-in (also know for Burning) as Jeong Jin-soo, the enigmatic leader of a religious cult.
In the world of Hellbound, ordinary people deemed sinners begin receiving ominous messages declaring the time of their impending deaths, and are later dragged away by “executors of Hell” at the prophesied time. Jin-soo’s cult believes that those “sinners” must have been condemned for their misdeeds, preaching that these terrifying occurrences are a form of divine justice.
“I thought of Yoo when I wrote the character. So I’ve waited so badly for Yoo to accept the role and it finally came true when he took it,” said Yeon per The Korea Times. He added that he was “extremely happy” to hear back from the actor.
Yoo added that he had been drawn to the project because of its title (which translates directly to “Hell” in Korean). “There has been a lot of work that depicted hell, but this was the first project [I came across] that had hell in the title,” explained the 35-year-old actor.
He went on to describe his character as “twisted” despite preaching righteousness and justice. “I tried to approach this character with a focus on figuring out his real intention and imaging what would be going through his mind [in each scene],” shared Yoo.
Director Yeon Sang-ho is best known for his films such as Train to Busan (2016) and its 2020 sequel Peninsula. Hellbound marks his debut as a television series director. The highly anticipated six-part series premieres worldwide on Netflix on November 19.
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