Solo Leveling’s Aleks Le talks about his experience as Sung Jinwoo

If you’re a fan of MobileSyrup and, specifically, my work, you might notice I’m a big fan of anime. Over the years, I’ve watched so much anime that it’s my go-to when I’m stressed or having a bad day. So, I obviously jumped at the chance to interview Aleks Le.

On TV, he’s Zenitsu in Demon Slayer (I literally have his poster on my wall), Thorfinn from Vinland Saga, Shinji Hirako in Bleach and so much more. Le already has an impressive career in Anime and American TV, but has also done lots of video game work as well including parts in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Persona 3 Reload, Zenless Zone Zero, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Horizon Forbidden West and Solo Leveling: Arise, which is based on the same web novel as his latest project, playing Sung Jin-woo in the Solo Leveling anime.

Ahead of the anime’s second season and the recently released movie, we got to chat about all things Sung Jinwoo and what it’s like to be a voice actor. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the opportunity to bother him about his work in Vinland Saga or Demon Slayer. Still, the Korean web novel-turned-anime is a huge hit, and I watched the first season twice (once in Japanese and another in English), so it was an honour to pick his brain about this new series. If you want to see all of the various projects Le has participated in you can check out his IMDB here.

Here’s the interview:

Sung Jinwoo had a huge transformation throughout Solo Leveling. How did you approach portraying that vocally?

It was really fun for me to do something like that because, it’s not many projects that I get to do a higher range, a lower range and a mid-range. It was just fun to run down the entire vocal range, and the character reminded me a lot of myself. He has a lot of imperfections, flaws, and arrogance that I also had when I was younger starting out in my voice acting career. And when I started, my voice was just as high as the original [Sung Jinwoo]. So it was kind of like a throwback for me to put this younger version of myself into the character. So the way I approached it was that I just put myself in the frame of mind I was in four or five years ago. Then, the later we got into the story, the more I just kind of settled into my natural self. But it was really fun to have that jog down memory Lane

In season two, your voice seemed even more confident. Are you doing something different with that?

[For context, I watched the Solo Leveling ReAwakening movie that shows the first two episodes of season two]

He’s [Sung Jinwoo] got a lot of things that he’s working through his head. There are newfound powers, things that he’s not familiar with the system, and there are things that he needs to find out about himself. So he’s a lot more level-headed than he was in the first season, but I think even though he’s more in control of his abilities, he’s also less arrogant about them now. In the first season he was very much like, this is what I have to do – this, this and this. But now he’s more “Okay, I gotta figure this out before I make any drastic moves and decisions.” So he’s a lot more meticulous about his actions now, and I think that’s an interesting way to portray him. Or even a different light to view him through as opposed to the way he ended the first season, which was him being so full of himself when fighting certain opponents. Now, he still has that air of arrogance, but he’s a lot more knowledgeable. And now that he’s more knowledgeable, he’s aware that there are a lot of things that he can work on himself. So there is definitely a huge difference on where we’re taking this character next. 

Were there any scenes that you found that were more emotionally or technically demanding for your voice in season one?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we were setting the tone for the character in the first season, it was super hard to nail down who he was and all the little quirks that he has when he speaks. So, as with any character, the first time you’re portraying him is always very important and also very difficult. With a character that changes so much, it’s also very hard to get a hold of.

There were a lot of taxing battle scenes and taxing emotional scenes so I think in season two, he’s gotten to a point where he’s found himself enough where we have less of that to work through, but it’s just as demanding to make any moments with him on screen memorable. Just like we did in the first season.

Do you have any favourite scenes that you’ve done with him so far?

I love the scene in episode six from the very first season. And that’s the scene where he fights a group of guys. That was a really cool moment where you saw him break down a little bit and regain himself with this newfound confidence, and I just thought that was a very memorable scene. I remember us spending a lot of time trying to get that perfect because that was the first time we were introducing his, like, kind of deep, deep voice as well. So, that was really challenging for me. 

[I noted that this is the first time Sung Jinwoo killed any humans. Up until this point, he’s only fought monsters.]

Yeah, that was the scene when he actually starts killing people for the first time. He kind of hesitates, but then he’s like, no, I have to do this. So we were also playing with that dynamic and how much it affects him as well.

Are there any parts of Sung Jinwoo’s character that you consider iconic, and does anything resonate strongly with viewers?

I think I’ve seen how it resonates because on TikTok and stuff, there are so many edits of him, and the thing that seems to strike a chord with a lot of people is strength and the ability to improve oneself. Like I’ve seen so many gym edits with the audio from Solo Leveling, and I feel like the message of self-improvement is very much something that everybody strives for. It’s really cool to see people find motivation in that.

For me, obviously, the iconic scenes that all the fans love, are the ‘Arise’ scene… But I feel that there are a lot of very memorable and fan-favourite moments from the show that people love to reference and come back to. Each stage of his life has a different defining moment, and [there’s] one that I’m looking forward to in particular. We got a little bit of it in season one, where he interacts with some people here and there, and sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it’s really cool. I’m just excited to see more of that because now we’re going to start to see the main cast of characters interact with him for the very first time. Beyond just like, “Hey, I know you,”  they’re gonna be like, “Oh so this is who we’re dealing with,” and I’m super excited for everybody to find out about it and just see how we interact with everybody else.

[I mention that I particularly like his interaction with one of his new summons who’s kind of a dumb kind of character]

And that summons, those are kind of exciting and funny interactions that I’m super looking forward to as well, so that’ll be very, very cool.

Are there any roles you’ve done that you find as challenging or transformative as Sung Jinwoo?

I feel like there is a trend in my career where I play a lot of characters with two sides to them. Or multiple different personalities, and I find that really funny that a lot of my jobs do require me to have different voices or different attitudes of the same character. But this one was definitely challenging in the sense that the dialogue was very important. So, we had to put so much effort into making sure the writing and the delivery were as good as they could be. Um, so anime-wise, this might be the hardest one that I’ve had to do so far. I’m grateful for it because it’s an amazing challenge. I’m also very, very happy with our end product, and I’m glad a lot of people are enjoying it as well. 

Vocally though. I mean, there are a ton of other projects where I have to go very extreme with my vocals, but this one is no joke either. This one has a lot of demands. I would say. It really just depends on the day. Some days, this is easy for me. Some days this is hard. So for the most part, everything is hard until you finish doing it.

Sung Jinwoo has tons of powers, which would you choose if you could pick any, and why?

 I was going to say I would love the ability to summon Shadows, but the thing about Shadows is that it has to be somebody freshly deceased, and I don’t see myself trying to kill anybody any time soon. So I don’t think I could use that power as effectively, or I don’t think I’d want to use that power. 

But he has the ability to access the shop, which I don’t think people talk about enough. I think that’s the coolest ability in the show because he can buy potions or daggers and weapons and armour, and I’m like; I would love to have a shop. If I’m low on energy, I’d love just to buy an energy drink from the shop, or if I’m feeling sick, I’d love to get a healing potion, you know. So I think the best ability to have is the shop.

What advice would you give to aspiring voice actors who are dreaming of doing projects like Solo Leveling or the other anime you’ve done? 

Be ready to… he chuckles… it sounds negative, but be ready to fail.

With an industry like acting, you’re never guaranteed a job. People think, oh, just because he’s in a lot of things, that means that I’ve always been successful. No, I fail more than I succeed. Because every single job that I’m a part of, I had to audition and basically battle hundreds if not thousands of other voice actors to get the part. So, every time you’re auditioning for something, you’re going up against a lot of people and just be aware that if somebody’s better than you for the role, that doesn’t mean you’re really bad; it doesn’t mean that you suck, it just means that you didn’t get it this time and you just gotta be ready to fail. There’s a lot of failure in this line of work; you just have to be mentally prepared to keep failing. 

If you don’t deal well with failure, this isn’t the job for you. You need very, very thick skin for something like this.

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This interview was edited for language and clarity.

Solo Leveling season two will premiere on Crunchyroll in January 2025.