I received a liver transplant from my father when I was in my second year of high school. Before I was taken into the operating room, a thought suddenly crossed my mind. “Why do people live?” That question became the beginning of a journey that changed my life. I grew up with my cheerful and kind father, my mother, who looked fragile on the outside but possessed a stronger will to live than anyone I knew, and my older sister, who was two years ahead of me. My ordinary childhood changed abruptly when I was in the lower grades of elementary school. After my grandfather’s business failed, our family was suddenly buried in debt, and for a while we had to live in a tent beside a subway station parking lot. Though I was young, I remember that time vividly. The cold night air, the anxious expressions on my parents’ faces, and my father trying to make the family laugh even in the midst of it all. That was when I learned for the first time. That people’s lives contain stories invisible on the surface. When I entered middle school, I acquired another name. “Professor OOO’s son.” Because I attended the middle school where my father worked, I had to live constantly under other people’s gaze. I felt I had to do well and could not make mistakes. That pressure also gave rise to a rebellious streak. I went through a period often referred to as “second-year middle school syndrome.” But my father never tried to suppress me. “Live as the person you are.” Those words remain at the center of my life to this day. Then, when I was in my second year of high school, my father’s end-stage cirrhosis put his life at risk. While our entire family was going through a desperate time, I decided without hesitation to donate part of my liver. The surgery was successful. But the time that followed was not easy. Amid excruciating pain and a long recovery, I confronted my life head-on for the first time. “What kind of life do I want to live?” One day, while I was spending time without finding an answer to that question, an old memory suddenly came back to me. It was the moment I stood onstage in a puppet show at my elementary school arts festival. It was a small stage, but that day I experienced the audience’s laughter and applause for the first time. The moment when my friends’ expressions changed and everyone laughed together. An indescribable thrill and joy passed through my body. And then I realized. I wanted to tell stories to people. That was how I chose the dream of becoming an actor. I moved to Seoul and enrolled in an acting program at an arts university, but reality was not easy. Since I had to manage both my studies and my living expenses, I had to work several jobs at the same time. I worked at a coffee shop during the day and as a manager at a wine bar at night. At times, I even started a small business and ran a shop myself. To avoid giving up on my dream of becoming an actor, I first had to secure my survival. Along the way, I met countless people. Customers, colleagues, friends, and strangers. I naturally began observing their ways of speaking, expressions, emotions, and stories. Looking back, that time was the most realistic acting class I could have had. It took me about 8 years to complete university, and during that time I continued working as an actor through various productions. Through my experiences onstage and in video projects, I gained one conviction. Being an actor is ultimately a profession that requires understanding people. Why people laugh, why they get angry, and why they remain silent. What wounds and desires they carry as they go through life. When you understand these things, a character finally comes alive. I have experienced a wide range of emotions and situations in my life. My childhood living in a tent, the liver transplant I chose to save my family, the long recovery, the fierce struggle to survive in Seoul, and my experience running a business. All of those moments have become the material for my acting today. I want to become an actor who moves freely between film, video, and works in a variety of genres. Rather than being confined to a particular image, I want to show a completely different face in every production. An actor who is familiar to audiences, yet new every time. That is the kind of actor I want to become. The life I have lived may have taken a somewhat winding path. But I have experienced that many more scenes because of it, and those experiences have made me who I am today. That is why I want to tell the story of my life through acting. What kind of characters I will encounter in the future, and what stories I will create. I want to remain an actor whose journey people are curious to follow.