After graduating from Seoul National University Business School, alumnus Wonsuk Kim (BBA '93) worked as a producer at MNET and KBS, and has made numerous awesome dramas from 'Monstar', 'Misaeng', 'Signal', 'My Mister', to 'Arthdal Chronicle' for 9 years since 2011. After that, he left Studio Dragon (a subsidiary of CJ ENM) in 2019 and is currently working as a producer of Kakao M's Baram Pictures. He is evaluated as a director with considerable depth and breadth of the world of work by critics and viewers, freely moving between various genres.

Q. What motivated you to go to business school?
When I was in high school, I first learned about the existence of a professional executive after reading the autobiography of ‘Lee Iacocca’. At that time, he was quite famous in Korea as “an executive with an annual salary of $1”, but these days, younger generations don’t know about him. In the 2019 movie , it is Lee Iacocca, the marketing executive who pushed for the acquisition of Ferrari by telling Ford's chairman that what Ford needs now is an 'image of victory'. The story of the book is not about the Ford days, but about being scouted by Chrysler after leaving the company and rebuilding the company on the verge of bankruptcy. In the meantime, watching the TV drama < Jeokdo-jeonseon > which aired around the same time, I thought the performance of businessmen traveling around the world was great. Naturally, I had a vague idea of wanting to become a professional manager, and I dreamed of going to business school. Of course, now that I think about it, I admired not professional executives, but the 'storytelling' of dramas and movies.

Q. Do you have any impressive classes?
In fact, it is the business school that I dreamed of and finally entered after many tries, but after I came in, I wondered if it was suitable for my aptitude. I was not good at numbers, but of course, most of the detailed majors in business administration needed 'mathematical sense'. Even the marketing major I expected taught ‘management statistics’ first. Perhaps it was because those are basic things you need to know for accurate market research, but it felt like a high barrier to me. When I took International Business class, the class I expected as much as Marketing, I had to read HBR (Harvard Business Review, which contains the management philosophies, problem-solving processes, crisis management capabilities of global companies. It was a class to find and present domestic companies with similar cases. It was the first time I read HBR, and it was very impressive and interesting that it was a case review based on the storytelling that you would see in a movie or a TV series. I worked hard to find and announced the case of a domestic company, but the presentation score was the lowest in the class. After thinking about whether business administration was my aptitude, I took a minor in Chinese from the third year. At that time, it was not long after diplomatic ties with China were established, so there was no opportunity to systematically learn Chinese in Korea except for school lectures. It was difficult to keep up with the first-year students majoring in Chinese language and literature thus already speaking Chinese much better than me. However, I worked hard while taking language training at Peking University. It was a moment when I felt the fun of language and literature.

Q. What motivated you to become a PD while majoring in Business Administration?
By the time I felt that business administration was not for me, my confidence and self-esteem were very low. As far as my professional career goes, I wanted to do what I like and am good at. However, I didn’t know what it is and I wondered if there is such a thing. At that time, a drama called was aired on TV. And that reminded me of a drama called , made by the same writer and director, which interfered with my study 4 years ago when I was trying the college entrance exam for the second time. When I was in high school, I played the "theater" and performed in a "rock band." The play was more than just a club activity, I worked very hard, and I participated in the Dongnang Youth Theater Festival hosted by the Seoul Institute of the Arts every year. There was a time when I wanted to play the guitar well, so I stayed up all night practicing. I gave up because I thought I lacked talent in both theater and music to pursue as a career, but I thought that if I were to do a drama, my experiences of hard work would be a big source of nourishment for me to do well. For this time, when I thought that I had to choose what I liked the most and what I was good at, I felt that drama was the answer.

Q. From MNET-KBS Drama Team-CJ ENM-Studio Dragon-to Baram Pictures, I would like to hear more about each journey as a producer.
At that time, in order to direct a drama, I had to apply for open recruitment at terrestrial broadcasting stations. Since only a handful number of about 10 people passed, the competition was fierce enough to be called a press exam. However, in the aftermath of the IMF crisis that occurred just before graduation, the door to entering a broadcasting station was even narrower. There were also broadcasting stations that did not offer public recruitment at all. I had five failures in two years from 1998 to 1999. In the meantime, I also worked as an FD for Arirang TV, because I wanted to experience it in advance in case a broadcasting station PD might not be suitable for me. Meanwhile, I passed MNET's PD recruitment and worked as a show PD for 1 year and 6 months. It was physically difficult, but it was a time when I learned a lot. The shooting and editing techniques I learned during this time helped me enter terrestrial broadcasting stations and get quickly recognized. In the end, I couldn't give up my dream of becoming a drama producer, so I took two more terrestrial tests while staying at accommodation for examinees near MNET. Eventually, in 2001, I was able to join the 27th KBS open recruitment.
At KBS, I directed , <Cinderella’s Stepsister>, < Sungkyunkwan Scandal >, and so on. Afterwards, a colleague who taught me at MNET suggested making a drama together, so I moved to CJ ENM. Studio Dragon was a spin-off company from CJ ENM, so I naturally moved. After the termination of the contract with CJ, I established a company called Baram Pictures with a like-minded producer, but when Kakao M took over this company in 2020, we turned out to build a nest in Kakao.

Q. You have directed many hit works such as , , , , and . Where do you usually get ideas for directing?
If directing ideas refer to the criteria for selecting directing items, in my case, dramas I want to watch and dramas I want to show to people around me are the most important criteria. It doesn't matter much to me whether the majority of the public I don't know will like it or whether it will be appealing to overseas viewers. As for the content of specific items, I sometimes get ideas from books I read or conversations with acquaintances or sometimes the writer suggests if first and it becomes a drama. In case of Misaeng, I read the original work by the recommendation of my acquaintance and made it into a drama. In case of Signal and My Mister, the writer's first draft was the beginning.

Q. Have you ever thought of a sequel to hit works such as and ?
Of course, there was a discussion because there were a lot of requests from viewers for the sequel for both Misaeng and Signal. I want to try if I have a chance, but if I do, I think it would right to do it when I can do it well. I would like to prepare and decide carefully so that I won’t disappoint viewers.

Q. What do you think is the most important competency as a PD?
There are many things, but what I felt most important while directing a drama is the so-called ‘emotional intelligence’, the ability to accurately understand my emotions and to infer the emotions of others through this. Without this ability, it is difficult to even understand, let alone express the script. There have been many times when I was surprised to learn that people have different abilities to understand the script even if they read the same script. Whether young students are angry, sad, or frustrated, they sometimes express their feelings in a word, "Annoyed," which eventually leads them not understanding the emotions of the characters in the script. I think emotional intelligence is very important not only for directing dramas but also in the real world.

Q. Do you have a goal you want to achieve as a PD or a genre you would like to perform?
There is no specific genre, but as a producer, I have a desire to create a drama that can be empathized with as many people as possible. These days, there seem to be countless walls depending on class, age, gender, and region. And the feelings of hatred for each other are getting worse. In an era when dramas are difficult to receive empathy and support from all members of society, I want to do something that raises topics that can be considered together.

Q. Please say a word to students who want to pursue a career in broadcasting industry.
In the past, when it comes to drama producers, we thought of directors, but now producers and directors are separated, and many producers stand out in drama production and film production who majored in business administration. These days, when Korean cultural products are receiving global attention and support, I think the more important the field of production becomes, the more attractive the field of media content will be for business administration graduates.
I thought that I gave up my first love, business administration, and started working in broadcasting, but thinking about it, everything I do is what I learned in business administration. I learned that detailed majors in business administration are involved in the process of making dramas: planning and promoting the dramas that people want to watch (marketing), raising funds (finance), making a production plan (operations management), staffing (organization management), managing production costs (accounting), and internationally collaborating (international management).
In the past, broadcasting could only be done through open recruitment of broadcasting stations with scarce possibility, but now the channels have become very diverse, such as movies, commercials, webtoons, web novels, and YouTube. I think you will definitely be a person who plays a major part in the media content industry in Korea if you start with the small things you can do, and do things with like-minded people little by little.

Q. I think everyone’s life is a drama. What do you think is the essential competency to successfully direct the drama of one’s life?
I don't like the saying 'Failure is the mother of success'. After many failures, I realized that the more I fail, the more I am afraid and less confident. What helped me move forward was not the experience of failure, but the experience of "small success." The larger your dream, the more I recommend that you set small goals that you can achieve and achieve them one by one, rather than risking too much for the 'one big shot'. In terms of time, this can be much faster. The first thing you need to make a great drama is a good script and casting. The script of life is not complete, so shouldn't the casting be good? Just as there is a saying that to change your life, you have to change the people you meet, so I hope you find someone you can learn from and who you can inspire with, and start with small goals and achieve them step by step.