After the ‘62nd Sapporo Snow-K-pop Festival’ finished on February 11th, Rain said, “Stages like today are very fun and feel precious to me.”
After playing ‘Rock Paper Scissors’ with his dancers at dinnertime and downing cool beers as punishment, he said, “My heart has become very light after the New Year,“ regarding last year’s ‘company’s stock dine-and-dash’, as well as ‘gambling accusations’ and other various rumors he went through.
2011 marks his 10th year since his debut and he has also entered his thirties in Korean age.
He laid out busy future plans, saying that he wanted to give his newly thirties self some slack, but meanwhile still wanted to fight as an Asian actor in America after military duties.
Rain was also interviewed at the concert, and you can read that below!
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Q. “You must have gone through a lot of suffering with many rumors last year.”
Rain: “A person always has specific hardships he/she has to go through. Only the ones who work through all that can become happy. I can endure these kinds of hardships as the plan I have inside is vast.”
Q. “This is the 10th year after your debut in 2002. What kind of challenges have you made?”
Rain: “From one to ten, they were all challenges. If the whole picture is 100, I succeeded about 70 and missed 30. My first dream was taking the #1 spot on a TV music program. Luckily, when I looked back, I had gained a lot of things. As a singer, I accomplished a grand slam in MTV Awards, and I was chosen for America’s ‘Time 100’. Also, as an actor, I’d gotten an award from American ‘MTV Movie Awards’ with my first lead in a Hollywood movie in ‘Ninja Assassin’, and another award from the Berlin International Movie Awards with the movie ‘I’m a Cyborg, but that’s OK’ that I had appeared in. If my twenties were a time I whipped myself on with no sleep, I want to give myself some breathing space in my thirties after my military duties.”
Q. “It looks like Park Jin Young’s JYP Entertainment has become the biggest stock owner of your J.Tune Entertainment, and making you allies again in a way. What’s behind this?”
Rain: “We had just kept the promise between the two of us. We sometimes had talks about achieving our individual dreams and agreeing to do something that would create synergy. I respect Jin Young hyung because of his recognizing of me, a former student of his, as a partner. It’s still hard for me to approve of MBLAQ, who I myself produce for, so there’s still a lot of things I need to learn when I look at him.”
Q. “You’re entering the army around fall.”
Rain: “Before I go into the military, I want to study. I restarted my English and Chinese studies, and I’ll learn how to play the guitar. Of course, I have some regrets. It’s because I’ll be leaving a gap after finally being able to flower in the American market after five years since I started in 2006, when I’d try in America for the first time. Right now, I have two Hollywood movie offers, and I’m sad I won’t be able to do them.”
Q. “What are your plans after getting out of the military?”
Rain: “After finishing my duties, I’m planning to throw myself into the American market. I want to really challenge as an Asian/Korean actor as I reside in America. Recently, there was news of Asian-descent group ‘Far East Movement’ recording 1st place in the Billboard charts, but the possibility of an Asian singer succeeding in America is very low. However, if there’s a famous movie producing company and distributors backing me up, I think it’s possible to try as an actor.”
Q. “What do you think about the idol groups leading the music market these days?”
Rain: “I wonder if I was ‘really an idol’ 10 years back. Haha. People who dance better than me and are hotter than me keep coming out. And people like freshness, so they’ll switch teams often. This is why I like the phrase, ‘Become a person that cannot be replaced’. I want to say to my juniors that if they want to just look back on memories in the future, to just enjoy, and if they think this is a lifelong job, to study.”
Q. “You must feel proud of the K-pop boom in Asia, as one of the pioneers of foreign advancement.”
Rain: “I think now Hallyu’s bubbles are all going out and it’s starting to make its own firm standing. It’s such a thankful and great thing to be able to compete with music in the Asian area. Now K-pop singers have to take care of themselves and keep that flow going steadily.”
Q. “You’re appearing in movie ‘Red Muffler’ (fictional name).”
Rain: “It’s a fictional scenario about a war breaking out in Korea, and I’m appearing as a cool combat plane pilot. I’m practicing riding on combat planes. We’re going into filming at the end of this month.”
Q. “If you’re to imagine a middle-aged Rain?”
Rain: “I want to dance while wearing a tuxedo on a TV program after I age a lot.”
Source: Yeonhap News via Daum & Allkpop
* I think... I'll still be his fan when he turn into a grandpa and dance while wearing a tuxedo LoL
