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| Actors Yoo Yeon-seok, left, and Moon Ga-young pose during an online press conference for the series "The Interest of Love," Wednesday. Courtesy of JTBC |
By Lee Gyu-lee
Actor Yoo Yeon-seok, known for his heartthrob roles in romance series, is leading "The Interest of Love," which follows the realistic romantic relationship of a workplace couple.
"In my previous works, the romances were devoted or one-way love. But this time, it's more realistic. This series involves different struggles and conflicts that everyone in real life might come across," the actor said during an online press conference for the series, Wednesday.
The new series from JTBC revolves around four men and women working at the same bank and their complicated, entangled romances, which drive them to choose how far they are willing to go for love.
The premiere, which aired Wednesday, showed Ha Sang-su (Yoo) and Ahn Su-yeong (Moon Ga-young) showing feelings for each other, hoping to become more than just colleagues. Sang-su has had a crush on Su-yeong since he started working for the bank. And when an incident leads to them going on a work trip, Sang-su musters the courage to ask her out.
The series, based on a novel of the same name by writer Lee Hyuk-jin, is led by director Jo Yeong-min, whose previous work includes the romance series "Do You Like Brahms?" and is co-scripted by writers Lee Seo-hyun and Lee Hyeon-jung.
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| A scene from the series "The Interest of Love" / Courtesy of JTBC |
The director noted that the series is a melodrama that can resonate with viewers.
"My previous series ('Do You Like Brahms?') was a melodrama so I wasn't sure if I should do another melodrama. But when I read the script, it was really interesting. It had a different love story from my previous series. I felt it was a realistic story that people can empathize with," he said.
Actor Yoo said that although the series has recreated a story from the original novel, he took references from it to help create his character.
"We tried to have our own interpretation (of the novel) to portray in the series," he said. "The characters' relationships and a lot of elements are similar to the original. So I picked up hints about my character from the novel."
Yoo and Moon said that they had such great chemistry in creating an intimate and subtle romance.
"I was curious how we would do in the created scenes. But when I saw Su-yeong that Moon created from Sang-su's perspective, it was so compelling. I just naturally followed that emotion," Yoo said.
Moon added that she relied on Yoo throughout the series. "The scenes and the lines were often long and the emotions we had to depict were very delicate. But there was this subtle feeling that we shared even without having to discuss it," she said. "I had fun looking into Yoo's eyes to act."
"The Interest of Love" airs Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 p.m. and is also available on Netflix.
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