How Alex Hafner Defied Gravity in “When the Stars Chat”

Alex Hafner was in Italy when he got the Korean drama script when the stars gossip. Hafner was born in Vienna and later lived in Madrid and Singapore before attending school in the United States, whereupon he became fluent in German, Spanish, English and French. However, he doesn't speak Korean. Although the script was difficult to decipher, he decided to audition.

“My translation is not an official translation, so it's a little weird,” Hafner said. “All I knew was that it was a Korean space event. I auditioned and they loved it. A week later I was in Korea. It all happened so fast, and then I really didn't know I would be there that long. The original plan It was six months, which turned into about a year.

Hafner received the script a week or two before completing his role vampire academy, An American fantasy horror series filmed in Spain where he currently lives. His role is when the stars gossip Santiago Gonzalez Garcia is an astronaut from the IOU Space Center who appears in an important part of the storyline. Non-Korean actors rarely play serial roles in Korean dramas. Sometimes, non-Korean actors are asked to shake hands in fictional presentations or sign contracts on fictional international deals. They may come back a few times to strike a deal. But Santiago aka Santi is a recurring character.

“I haven't watched many Korean dramas,” Hafner said. “But then squid game, They started to catch my attention, so I started paying more attention to them. Whenever they had a western, it was always maybe one or two scenes, never a full arc.

In the opening space launch, Santi shares screen time with a space tourist played by Lee Min Ho and a mission commander played by Gong Hyo Jin. Then, once at the space station, he continues to interact with all crew members.

Hafner is a quick learner of languages, but performing in a play where nearly everyone speaks Korean was a unique experience.

“This is a live tour because not everyone in the Korean creative industry speaks English, so there’s a lot lost in translation,” Hafner said. “Some of my co-stars don't speak English. Obviously, by being able to communicate better, I build more of an affinity with those who do. But yeah, it's definitely a journey. Korean is as good as any Western language It's all very different, I'm still learning Korean, I'm at an intermediate level now, but I definitely don't feel like I understand Korean.

So, how does he behave in a scene where he doesn't understand what the people around him are saying? He looked around the room.

“I kind of knew what that scene was about,” Hafner said. “The hardest part for me is rehearsing with someone and knowing when to interrupt and when to speak.”

As the shoot progressed, things got easier.

“Most of the time I couldn't understand any actual conversation,” Hafner said. “I just thought, oh, they must be arguing about this. You get better after you're there. I feel like I'm pretty good at reading gestures, like body language. Because you don't understand, you develop this perception of other things. Crazy realization. Oh, he's doing this. He's trying to be funny, but she's not laughing and vice versa.

On the space mission, Gong plays Eve Kim, a Korean-American astronaut who speaks English and translates for the Korean crew and Sandy. In order to film the rocket launch scene, Hafner, Gong and Li spent a long time in the space capsule. Both Gong and Li speak English, so they find it easier to understand each other.

“We were trapped in this capsule for four hours at a time between lunch and dinner time,” Hafner said. “We would shoot in the morning, then break for lunch, we would shoot again, break for dinner, and then shoot again . We spend eight to ten hours a day in this capsule. It either makes you close or not close at all. I'm glad it's the former.

Eating together can also help build friendships.

“I think Korean culture and European Mediterranean culture are very similar in the way they share food,” Hafner said. “Even if you go to a restaurant to eat, it's small plates and everyone shares the food. It makes it easier to interact. And then Minho is really cool because he has all these fan clubs and they sponsor all the fans from different countries. These different types of food trucks. There are different food trucks and different coffee or tea trucks every day, sponsored by Minoz from Argentina or Minoz from Hong Kong or Japan.

The drama will start filming in April 2022 and will not be completed until February 2023.

“Progress has been much slower than they expected because in Korea they shoot very fast,” Hafner said. “They're very fast to set up, especially on the street or anything in a normal soundstage. But all the zero-gravity movement is a little crazy.

The zero-gravity scenes were shot in two different ways, neither of which was easy for the actors.

“You can hang directly from the wire, or you can use a harness that's attached to something on the wire,” Hafner said. “There's a big fork, and you're on this cylindrical harness, at the end of the fork. This It's actually the best, it actually feels like zero gravity because when you push away from something, you're spinning, but if there's movement in the scene, they set up another one for us as we move.

It would be easier to put the actor in a vest on wires, but this option is very tiring.

“It puts a lot of pressure on you, it makes you tired,” Hafner said. “It's very challenging to perform with the vest line. On top of that, they have these green guys, kind of like the Blue Man Group, but green, that help you move smoothly. You can't push off in an erratic way, Because in real space you'd accelerate and hit the next wall hard.

Because wire work is so uncomfortable, the actors learned how to imitate the motion of floating so they could do at least some scenes without wires or harnesses.

“We learned to take action and somehow keep the movement going,” Hafner said. “Because no one wants to call, especially late in the day.”

A Korean astronaut visited the set and shared her experience in space, and feeling uncomfortable was part of it.

“She said being in space feels like you're constantly vomiting,” Hafner said. “It's like when you're on a roller coaster and the first dip everything comes out and that feeling stays with me. I was like, Oh, perfect. So the way my body ached was consistent with what the character was feeling.

To prepare for his role, he watched several TV series starring his co-stars.

“I really don't know Minho or Jinhyo,” Hafner said. “I saw pinball machinethis is amazing. I saw Kim Hyo in different shows, When camellias bloom, Then director Park Shin-woo made a show about a radio station Jealousy incarnatestarring Jin Hyo and Cho Jung Sook, with Cho Jung Sook playing a newscaster When the stars gossip.

Hafner is willing to star in more Korean dramas.

“Hopefully this show is a hit and I'd love to do another TV show,” Hafner said. “Now that I know some Korean, it would be cool to do a thing where I have to speak. I mean, I don't have to speak like a Nobel Prize winner. I could be a foreigner in Korea and be Some simple Korean, that would be great.

when the stars gossip which also stars Oh Jung-se, Han Ji-eun, Lee Ael, Lee Cho-hee, and Heo Nam-joon, and airs on Netflix.