Fourteen years ago, a behemoth invaded Cannes. A Korean movie called The Host was premiering at the festival sidebar known as the Director’s Fortnight. Predictably, the old Cannes hands were aghast that a film about a man trying to save his daughter from the clutches of a carnivorous sea monster had been invited, yet the line was enormous and snaked out onto the Croisette. I’d been a fan of the director’s previous, non-monster movies and joined it. There was something different about this crowd. Excitable local hausfraus were in line, not just the usual film nerds. And in 10 years of attending the festival as a critic and as a viewer, I’d never witnessed such spontaneous cheering during a film, nor such an unforced ovation. Even the director himself seemed like an entirely new sort of person on the scene—a tall, diffident-looking man who boldly admitted to making horror movies, and who was already becoming known to anglophone fans as simply “Bong.”

Fast-forward 14 years. In 2019, Bong’s new film, a genre-fluid thriller about a poor family that insinuates itself into the domestic life of a wealthy family, premiered at Cannes. I wasn’t at the festival this time, but as soon as the film ended, I got an emoji-laden text from a friend, the actor Tilda Swinton: “Parasite is a masterpiece!” Swinton’s words were borne out quickly. Parasite took home the Palme d’Or and is arguably the most popular winner of the festival’s top prize since 1994’s Pulp Fiction.

Things have changed for Bong Joon Ho. Or perhaps it’s the other way around: Bong Joon Ho changed things.

“They made my clothes too small.”

Bong’s at the Smashbox studios in Culver City, and it seems his sizes did not translate perfectly from Korean, which amuses him. He totters around in a comical stiff-armed, stiff-legged walk, the back of his velvet suit jacket unstitched down the middle and split open. I’m not sure if anyone has attempted to tame the signature bird’s nest atop his head, which might best be called a Bongfro. Between setups, the director sips his black coffee. Finally he’s asked to lie back in a deck chair before a faux blue sky.

“We’ll have to be careful about this,” whispers his publicist, Mara Buxbaum. “It makes him look very Hollywood, and he’s so not about that.”

She needn’t worry. Recumbent and with his shades on, Bong resembles a man who’s dozed off on a chaise while waiting for his wife at Ikea. There’s nothing outwardly “showbiz” about him. And this, really, has been his superpower.

Bong is a disrupter. That’s a tired word now, co-opted by the tech and streaming worlds, but he’s the real walking, talking deal. He’s written his own rules, disproved the conventional wisdom that Americans won’t embrace subtitled movies, and turned a Seoul-set class warfare comedy-thriller into a staggering hit: Parasite has already earned $25 million in the U.S., making it by far the highest-grossing foreign-language film of last year, and more than $132 million worldwide. A limited series is even in the works at HBO. Bong has inspired all this by staying true to his idiosyncratic self.

This is the year the Academy Award formerly known as “best foreign language film” has been renamed “best international feature film.” Parasite has helped the Oscars evolve even further (as Roma did last year) by snagging six nominations, including not just best international film but best picture, best director, best original screenplay, best production design, and best editing. No feature film from South Korea has ever been nominated in any of these categories. Asked about the pressure—our interview takes place before the nominations are announced—Bong says, “I don’t create movies for the country. I barely think about the concept of countries and borders. I just really pursue my own personal pursuits.” Korean American actor Steven Yeun, a star in Bong’s Okja (2017), agrees that the director’s strength is his singularity: “I think this moment transcends any cultural boundaries. For Bong to see the fruits of his labor here in the States speaks more to me about the world and how we’re all changing.”