The 'Itaewon Class' star and 'Squid Game' breakout Won Ji-an discuss their upcoming JTBC romance at a Seoul press event
Park Seo-joon hasn't done a proper romantic drama in five years. Ever since he sparked a cultural moment as the dogged underdog Park Sae-ro-yi in "Itaewon Class," he's kept busy with bigger-budget fare — a cameo in Marvel Cinematic Universe's "The Marvels," Netflix's period horror "Gyeongseong Creature," and the apocalyptic "Concrete Utopia."
But sitting before a room full of reporters at a hotel in Seoul's Guro-gu on Thursday, the 37-year-old seemed ready to scale back down.
"I've been working steadily, just on different platforms," Park said at the press conference for "Surely Tomorrow," his new series premiering Saturday on JTBC. "But I think I've come back with a more mature way of expressing things."
The drama follows Gyeong-do, an entertainment reporter, as he gets tangled up with an old college flame, Ji-woo, under messy circumstances: He's covering a cheating scandal, and she happens to be the wife of the man at its center. Their history stretches back 18 years — a romance at age 20, a second try at 26, and now this awkward third chapter in their late thirties.
The premise involving an entertainment reporter as the natural lead drew plenty of questions from the assembled press.
Director Lim Hyun-wook, himself a former reporter before moving into variety shows and dramas — most recently 2023's smash hit "King the Land" — said the profession was baked into the setup from the start. "The whole story kicks off because Gyeong-do's job puts him in this situation," he explained. "Without him being a reporter, none of it could have happened."
Park drew from his own experience working the press circuit. "Early in my career, I must've hit 50 to 70 newsrooms in a single week doing interviews," he said. "I still remember the vibe, the different atmospheres of newsrooms. All of that came flooding back."
His co-star Won Ji-an, 26, plays Ji-woo — a chaebol heiress whose polished surface masks deeper insecurities. Won broke out last year as the doomed Player 380 in "Squid Game" Season 2, the tough-as-nails tomboy who meets a brutal end. This one marks her first lead in a major network drama.
The 11-year age gap between the leads predictably came up. Park admitted he'd been self-conscious at first. "But once we actually met, she was incredibly mature," he said. "I don't know what she's been through, but there's this seasoned quality to her."
Won brushed off concerns about working alongside someone a decade older. "I actually learned a lot from the experience," she said. "I haven't hit my thirties yet, so whenever I needed to figure out how to play that age, I'd just watch him and follow his lead."
The structure jumps between three time periods, not chronologically, but emotionally. "What matters isn't when something happened," Lim said. "It's where these two are at emotionally in any given moment."
Park pushed back a bit on the "romance" label. "To me, it feels closer to melodrama," he said. "There's a lot here that people can actually relate to. These are conflicts rooted in reality."
"Surely Tomorrow" airs Saturdays and Sundays at 10:40 p.m. on JTBC, with episodes streaming in select territories on Prime Video.
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com
