Park Jung-min on 'Humint' crew: 'I don't think I'll ever have something like this again'

Somewhere in Latvia, in the dead of winter, with no reliable cell service and nothing to do after wrap, the cast of "Humint" found themselves stuck with each other.

The film, director Ryoo Seung-wan's $16 million spy thriller, was shot extensively in Riga as a stand-in for Vladivostok, Russia, where much of the story unfolds. Looking back on those weeks abroad, Park Jung-min gets nostalgic.

"We'd finish shooting and walk around these freezing, snowy streets together, talking about the movie, hanging out at the hotel," the actor says on Monday at a cafe in Samcheong-dong, Seoul. "Everyone was basically stranded. So we just started looking out for one another.

"I keep thinking, will I ever have a set like that again? Probably not. That makes me a bit sad."

In the film, Park plays Park Geon, a North Korean intelligence operative whose mission in Vladivostok pulls him into a collision with a South Korean agent (Zo In-sung) and the estranged lover (Shin Se-kyung) he never got over.

Of the co-stars who weathered those frozen months together, Park had only warm things to say. Zo was "a pillar," the kind of presence you lean on without thinking twice. "I can't even begin to describe what I learned from him in front of the camera," Park says. "He holds the whole set together."

Shin Se-kyung was a different kind of revelation. Her quiet, steely turn as the woman trapped at the center of it all is one of the few elements that keep the film grounded when everything around it flies off the rails.

Park had assumed the film would be driven by its two leading men, but Shin rewrote those expectations. "I thought this was supposed to be a Zo In-sung and Park Jung-min movie," he says. "Then Shin Se-kyung dropped in like this massive force, and the whole thing shifted. Her character just took over."

Then there was Park Hae-joon, who plays the smooth-talking consul general with something rotten behind the charm. His presence on set immediately put everyone on notice. "After he showed up on set, it hit all of us at once," Park says. "We looked at each other and said, 'If we're going to keep up with that, we gotta go all in.'"

The local stunt crew was another story. Latvia's team had no experience with Korean action films, and once the action got wild, they started to pull back. Then director Ryoo stepped in — literally hurling himself down a staircase to show how a brawl should look.

"The director starts throwing his body around, and the Latvian guys have never seen anything like it," Park says. "Something clicked. They went all out. By the end, they were begging for another take."

All in all, the shoot gave Park a chance to reckon with what it takes to carry a film. "Having someone you can rely on, and being the person others need to rely on — those are two very different things," he says. "I learned a lot about the gap between them."

"Humint" opens in theaters Wednesday.