Before the interview, I wondered briefly whether I should call him T.O.P or Choi Seung Hyun. To tell you the conclusion, both the name T.O.P and the name Choi Seung Hyun were used together without any awkwardness in the interivew.
As an interview to promote the movie ‘Into the Fire’ (dir. Lee Jae Han) due out this June, I met T.O.P on May 20th at a cafe in Seoul. Unlike other idols-turned-actors who discard their stage names and encourage the use of their birth names saying, “Forget the image of my that you see on stage,” T.O.P, Choi Seung Hyun did not neglect neither Big Bang’s T.O.P nor actor Choi Seung Hyun.
Rather, today T.O.P says, “I think about going back to the stage now.” Putting the past several months, during which he was mindlessly busy with drama ‘Iris’ and movie ‘Into the Fire,’ behind him, he had been thinking about the next step and “for now I think I want to return to being the musician T.O.P. I have a mindset that I shouldn’t neglect either side.” Neither an escape nor an abandonment, it was simply a glimpse into 24-year-old T.O.P’s efforts at finding a balance between acting and music.
Then how would one score T.O.P’s first big screen debut? The movie hasn’t debuted yet but the movie critics’ opinions are high. T.O.P’s fierce gaze as seen in the movie previews also heightened expectations. Cha Seung Won, Kim Seung Woo, Kwon Sang Woo, and other acting seniors who starred in the movie complimented T.O.P’s acting, and critics acclaimed, “This is T.O.P’s movie. This is T.O.P’s rediscovery.” But T.O.P’s own reaction is downplayed.
“Looking back, it’s an honor to be part of a film with so much meaning at my age. But even while I was filming I didn’t really think about that stuff. Until filming ended, I didn’t have much freedom of mind to think about it.”

But he does say that his level of satisfaction is high. “I can’t really give it a score, but I put my all into it and I feel satisfied. I wasn’t myself as I was filming ‘Into the Fire,’ he says as he thinks about his efforts.
“Even now I have a brotherly relationship with director Lee Jae Han, who has a similar personality as I do. We would talk a lot in his office even before filming began, and I thought about how I wanted to temporarily put the existing T.O.P aside and become the character in the movie. The director said, ‘I don’t know how good your acting technique is as of now, but let’s put everything on the line and do this.’ As we talked about things like this, we adapted mindsets and know-hows that I would use before going on stage to developing my character in the movie.”
Having had such a conversation, T.O.P’s efforts in separating actor from singer became pointless. He was an artist who was immersed in both acting and music simultaneously. Though he still avoids putting more weight on one or the other, he also learned to put his all into both and becoming the best in bothw orlds.
Suddenly, I become curious as to who T.O.P will be at the age of 30.
“What do you think we’ll see of you when you’re 30?” At this question, T.O.P’s answer was as follows.
“I can’t really guess but I want to become someone who is unique in all things. I want to become a person that is so fresh, to the point where people call me a monster. I want to become someone who incites expectation and curiosity in everyone who hears the name T.O.P.”
To end, T.O.P leaves us with leaves us with the saying, “It’s easy to become a cool person. But to become a curious person, that’s hard.”
Credits to BBVIP & IBigbang @ Wordpress