THE Disney+ original Korean drama Call It Love – directed by Lee Kwang-young –follows Sim Woo-joo (played by Lee Sung-kyung), who plans her revenge after being forcibly removed from her father’s home by his lover following his sudden death. The son of her father’s mistress, Han Dong-jin (Kim Young-kwang), is the target of Woo-joo’s rage, but she eventually finds herself falling in love with him.
On Feb 21, the director Lee and cast members Young-kwang, Sung-kyung, Sung Joon (who plays Woo-joo’s friend Yoon Joon), Ahn Hee-yeon (Dong-jin’s ex Kang Min-young) and Kim Ye-won (Woo-joo’s sister Hye-sung) participated in an online press conference where they spoke about the series.
Director Lee states that she is both extremely anxious and excited about the series’ premiere through Disney+, not just in Korea but also in other parts of the world. She highlighted how hard they worked, despite the heat and cold weather, and expressed her hope that since love is universal, many people will like the series.
The director claimed that retribution was not the series’ main theme. She said that when we talk about revenge even in our daily lives, we frequently feel like we want to kill someone but in reality, we know we can’t.
Dong-jin is a lonely character who has struggled for a long time to deal with his anguish. Young-kwang said that while portraying Dong-jin, he experienced numerous emotional experiences.
Director Lee believes that viewers will find relief and comfort in this series.
The word “revenge” can sound a little heated, but Woo-joo is not the sort of person who can carry out a revenge successfully, Sung-kyung said while describing her character, adding that Woo-joo jumps to defend something precious to her as she realises an unexpected emotion.
As the two leads are good friends in real life, it was initially difficult for them to work together. But in order to fully commit to their roles, they didn’t make fun of each other on set.
Sung-kyung said: “We are so close, and I’m the type who plays around to make people feel more at ease. So I tried to keep myself away from him to remain in character. As you can see from the still photos, my look appears hostile towards Dong-jin ... and it changes over time.”
Ahn Hee-yeon plays Min-young, Dong-jin’s ex. She claimed that her character had a lot of ambiguity.
Meanwhile, Kim Ye-won described her character Hye-sung as someone who makes an effort to maintain optimism in both life and love, adding that it was fun to work on the set.
Sung Joon described himself as a responsible individual. He said that spending time with Lee Sung-kyung while they were filming together was super comfortable, “as if I was hanging out with a friend – a friend from high school.”
Working with five actors with varied personalities first gave Director Lee pause, but she quickly discovered that they were all incredibly thoughtful of others.
She said: “We wanted to deliver the lines as close to the everyday conversations we have in real life as possible, so the cast did not practice before going into filming, but they simply went ahead with performing on set.”
“Everyone was already their character, whether it was Dong-jin, Woo-joo, Min-young, Jun, or Hye-sung. They all came to the set as their characters, so they did not have to practice with the other cast members, but they simply performed their roles as they wanted, which in the end, created the best scenes. It was quite moving.”
theSun also sat down for an exclusive Zoom interview with Call it Love’s lead actors Young-kwang and Sung-kyung, and we asked the pair what they found most challenging about bringing this screenplay to life.
After finishing her previous project, Sung-kyung started this one right away, and she said she was really worried since she wanted to perform her absolute best. She felt under pressure to prepare herself more thoroughly.
She said: “Thanks to a lot of support and the understanding from the director and the cast members, I was able to let go of my worries.”
The hardest obstacle, according to Young-kwang, was delving inside the character’s feelings, striking the correct balance, and presenting those emotions. He had several conversations with the director about these issues during the production process.
We questioned them about the atmosphere on set, because this series is not as vibrant as most other love dramas. In the early stages of the production, according to Sung-kyung, they really needed to concentrate since they had to get to know each of their characters better.
This was especially crucial given they are all such close friends in real life.
“Everyone was very cautious. Even though we became a little more at ease as time went on, we were so very much focused on creating the emotional arc, so I would say the overall ambience was not as bubbly and bright.”
Most of their fans are used to seeing them in lighter, more sentimental romance series, according to Young-kwang. He wants to give their supporters a glimpse of a different side of them.
“This time, I hope our fans can look forward to see a more mature, more close-to-real-life drama, and also one that really shows the power of what comfort between people can have.”
When asked if there was anything she wanted to say to her Malaysian fans, Sung-kyung replied: “I read all of the comments [and feel] all of the support coming from the Malaysian fans, and each time I’m very touched and I’m always very grateful for all of your support and love.
“I truly hope that you enjoy this series, and one of the reasons I try to challenge myself to do new roles is because I have hope that my fans will enjoy seeing me in these new characters.
“So I hope you guys will get to do that, through Call it Love.”
Call it Love is available to stream on Disney+ Hotstar, with new episodes released every Wednesdays and Thursdays.
