Stephen and I – a Chat with Jack Huston

Playing the role of Stephen in “A Rose Reborn”, British actor Jack Huston identifies himself with the young entrepreneur who goes beyond his own world to explore a better future.  The film is an international collaboration project of Ermenegildo Zegna with prominent Korean director Park Chan-Wook and Asian actor Daniel Wu.  Jack shares his view towards the film, the cooperation and the brand.

Q: Some say you have a forward looking, tough personality, which is a theme of the film.  How close do you feel to the characters in it?
Jack: When I initially read the film, the concept, I have to seek and elaborate for a while before I realize the real meaning.  It’s sort of like the film: the closer you look at it, the more it comes to life. It’s about perception and how we look at each other and how we look at people.

I do relate myself to Stephen, as he is a forward-thinking, innovative young man trying to bring something new to the world.  The brand Zegna is always striving to bring something new, to reinvent themselves.  In a way it’s about death and life, about rebirth and creation - constantly reinventing oneself through a journey.

Q: There are symbols found in this short film, what interests you the most?
Jack: The whole movie is symbolic in many different ways and forms, such as in episode 3 I have a piece of rice between my teeth, taking it out and in the next scene I'm looking at it as an artifact.  It doesn’t only symbolize art and craftsmanship, but also parallels to the clothes by Zegna.  But I think it is also a lost generational thing. 

Q:  What do you think about the cultural mix personalities inside the movie?
Jack:  It is amazing!  Everyone in this film, the Brand as well, has a different background - myself from England, Daniel who has grown up in the States and has his career in Asia and director Park who is from South Korea. 
But we all find our own style, artistically, yet it is quite common between artistic people.  Even though our culture clashes, when we start talking about film and clothes, we all found that we are all very similar, which is very interesting.

Q: What do you think about the movie's wardrobe, the broken suit concept?
Jack: I love it.  At first I think director Park wanted to make it like a bit more obvious, stronger the conflict of colors or between suit, jacket, and jeans whatever it was.  But actually by looking closer, the subtle differences sometimes are the most remarkable and it means you have to just look harder to see them.  This is the importance, we should always look closer at things and people.