CLASSIC: The American Soldiers Who Defected to North Korea and Became Movie Stars

Ridiculous History

iHeartPodcasts

History, Society & Culture

4.3 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

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Summary

In this weekend's Classic episode, Ben quizzes Max on his dreams of being a director, ultimately asking: What would the average person do to become famous? Often described as one of the most isolated countries in the world, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has been ruled by the Kim dynasty since 1948. And while most reports of defectors focus on harrowing stories of North Koreans escaping to freedom in China or South Korea, a handful of people actually traveled in the other direction, defecting to North Korea. Listen in to learn more about the strange journeys American soldiers took, away from the military and straight to the forefront of North Korea's film industry.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the show.
0:01.2	Fellow Ridiculous Historians, we've got a classic episode that is near and dear to my heart.
0:07.5	Oh, my name is Ben Boland.
0:09.0	My co-host, Noel, is On Adventures.
0:12.0	We're joined as always with our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
0:16.5	Max, how are we doing?
0:17.5	You know what?
0:18.3	We're doing well.
0:19.4	I'm not a movie star yet, but, you know, maybe a minor podcast star.
0:23.6	I was going to ask you if you ever thought of gracing the big screen.
0:30.1	When I was younger, I had dreams of being a director. Oh, yeah? Yeah. It's a Williams bro curse, I guess.
0:37.3	Right. That's a shout out to our composer, the legendary Alex Williams, yeah. Yeah, it's a Williams bro curse, I guess. Right.
0:37.8	That's a shout out to our composer, the legendary Alex Williams, Max's biological brother.
0:43.7	Well, you know, I did a lot of acting back in the day and I still get, I still feel the
0:49.1	cold of the stage occasionally, Max.
0:51.7	However, a lot of people don't make it to what we call a list movie stardom
0:57.9	Hollywood is a very difficult system from its beginning to the modern day and it's a matter of
1:05.8	having opportunity talent drive and honestly no matter how good you are, a lot of luck, right?
1:14.2	Nepotism also plays a role.
1:16.1	But as we're going to see in this classic episode, way back in the day, there was a guy
1:21.9	who figured out a shortcut to becoming a movie star.
1:25.7	And it's a shortcut you might be able to use today.
	...

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