Actor Song Joong-ki, who has wowed the audience with both commercial and critical TV success through “Reborn Rich” (2022) and “Vincenzo” (2021), chose to show his rough side this time through rookie director Kim Chang-hoon’s noir flick “Hopeless.”

Song, who returned to Korea after spending time with his newborn son and British wife in Rome for nine months, said he has always been on the lookout for opportunities to try new genres and projects internationally.

“Although many people think that I’ve become interested in doing overseas projects after marrying my wife, but I’ve been going to global auditions for many years to try out more genres in different cultures and systems," Song said.

"But of course, my wife gives me a lot of support in many ways because she still has friends in the UK and Hollywood, arranging meetings and auditions for me,” Song said in an interview with The Korea Herald in Seoul on Monday.

“But sadly, I failed all of those previous auditions,” Song said, laughing.

Song, whose previous projects are mostly TV dramas, said he has a desire to do a wide variety of genres rather than varied characters, if he had to choose one over the other. The horror genre, for example, is on his to-try list.