Kim Se-jeong relished Netflix K-drama Business Proposal role because, as a romantic comedy, it exten
The 12-part series produced by Korean broadcaster SBS garnered popularity on Netflix, topping the platform’s top-10 weekly charts for non-English TV shows for three consecutive weeks.
The actress, who previously played a brazen teenager in School 2017 and a tough demon hunter in The Uncanny Counter, says she took the role of Ha-ri because she wanted to accept the challenge of playing a different type of character.“It started out simple, like I want to take a stab at romcom. I’d been playing tough, high-spirited characters so my previous work genres were usually drama and emotional, which I liked. But I felt the need to take a challenge with different stories. I wanted to show a different side,” she says.
Ha-ri makes up a different persona as she goes on a blind date, using the alias Shin Geum-hee. Kim says she liked how she had a lot to show through the character of Ha-ri.
“There are different images to the character, which I thought was appealing. I liked how this is a romcom series yet there are so many aspects I could portray with the character and decided to take the role,” she says. “But that was the part that made this character difficult … the more I read the script, the more complicated it felt.”
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The actress says she put in a lot of effort studying her character and how she can portray Ha-ri in different situations, from trying to ruin the blind date for her friend to struggling to stay under the radar at work from Tae-moo.
“There’s a portrayal of Geum-hee and also of Ha-ri. So I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I had to set the tone (for each portrayal) and needed to spend a lot of time studying the character,” she says.
Despite the series being based on the webcomic, Kim says she tried to avoid studying the character from the original work so as to create her version of the character.
“I felt like I wouldn’t have a chance to create my own character if I read the original work and see how she is portrayed in it,” she says. “But I did need to grasp why the original piece became a hit. I felt I needed to carry a sense of responsibility to keep the elements that made its fans like the original work.”
The series has made a buzz with its comical scenes and cute romantic stories of the two leads and supporting characters, despite the cliché-ridden Cinderella plot.
Kim says she knew that the series would find popularity with global audiences. “What I was more worried about was whether the Korean viewers would like the series.
“The reason K-romance is popular abroad is that it follows everyday life. Rather than involving some big, dynamic plots, Korean romcom stories revolve around small, daily parts of our lives,” she says.
“And Business Proposal did a good job in capturing those stories so I knew that the global audience would respond to the series. And I hoped the Korean audience would feel the same way and I’m grateful that we got such great responses from both locals and people abroad.”
She adds that her great chemistry with her counterpart, Ahn, contributed to the quality of the series.
“Our romance chemistry worked really well. A lot of the romantic scenes that made a buzz were improvised on the set,” she says. “He’s very considerate so we would work out the scenes that either of us felt uncomfortable with. We were able to come up with such lovely scenes by sharing our opinions.”
Referring to the series as her “spring”, she says it has marked the end of her 20s.
“So when I get into my 30s and … 50s, when I think of my 20s, I feel Business Proposal will be the first thing that will come to my mind.”
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