In The Interview, Playing the Heavy Gets Dangerous

Randall Park plays Kim Jong Un in the interview, out Dec. 25, in which the CIA tasks journalists James Franco and Seth Rogen with killing the North Korean dictator. North Korea issued a statement promising a “decisive and merciless countermeasure,” so Time asked Park the obvious question.

Are you insane?

Yes. A little bit. I’m also superpsyched about being part of this movie. But yeah …

Why did you decide to gain a lot of weight instead of wearing a fat suit? This isn’t like Robert De Niro playing a boxer in Raging Bull. You won’t get an Oscar for this.

We don’t know that yet. They were going to put prosthetics on me. But they did a camera test a week before my first day of shooting, and they wanted more realism. So I had a week to put on the weight.

Rice balls?

Doughnuts.

How many doughnuts a day?

I lost count. It was doughnuts and hot dogs. I had the time of my life. I gained 7 lb. that week, and three weeks after that I got up to 15 lb.

You could never gain that much weight on Korean food, right?

No. Korean food is too healthy. It had to be American food.

That scene where you get to smash everything looked pretty fun.

I’m always surprised when producers are O.K. with me destroying a set. We only had one take. We didn’t have backups.

What was worse off set: the weight or the haircut?

The haircut, for sure. I wore hats constantly. I’d be standing there sweating inside some nice warm house with this Holden Caulfield hat on.

What did your wife think of the haircut?

She was happy when the movie was done.

Did she withhold marital relations until you finished shooting?

Uh … no. No. Of course not. I don’t know why I had to think about that. She liked the Holden Caulfield hat, so it all worked out.

This appears in the December 01, 2014 issue of TIME.

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