‘When the Phone Rings’ Yoo Yeon-seok “Cheesy Lines? Felt Like the Writer Gave Me Another Homework Assignment”
On the morning of Jan 6th, Yoo Yeon-seok sat for an interview at the King Kong by Starship Entertainment building in Gangnam, Seoul to discuss MBC’s Friday-Saturday drama “When the Phone Rings“.
In the drama, Yoo Yeon-seok had several romantic scenes and exchanged somewhat cheesy lines with co-star Chae Soo-bin, which became a topic of discussion. Regarding this, Yoo Yeon-seok commented, “When I first saw it on paper, I wondered how I could deliver these lines in a frank way. But when it came time to film, I found myself in the right mindset and emotional state to say those words naturally. During filming, I thought, ‘If I don’t believe what I’m saying, viewers won’t either.’ So I focused on fully believing the emotions and situations when delivering the lines.”
He added, “Especially with Baek Sa-eon’s speech pattern, which is rigid, using phrases like ‘did’, ‘have you done’, ‘right’, I didn’t try to make it sound conversational but stuck to the script exactly as written. I was grateful to hear feedback like, ‘You delivered the lines well without making them awkward’ and ‘What could have been cringy was done naturally.’“
He humorously noted, “In the final episode, there’s a line where I say, ‘You’re punishing me now.’ When I first read that, I thought, ‘The writer has given me another homework assignment.’“
Yoo Yeon-seok also shared his thoughts on the global popularity of “When the Phone Rings”. He stated, “While I start projects with hope, it’s impossible to predict the outcome. I never expected such an enthusiastic response.”
According to FlixPatrol, a global OTT content ranking site, “When the Phone Rings” demonstrated its strength by ranking in Netflix’s Global Top 10 TV Shows for six consecutive weeks, from the last week of November to the first week of January. Nielsen Korea reported that the drama’s final episode achieved a national household rating of 8.6%, setting a new personal best for the series.
Yoo Yeon-seok said, “I was very surprised when I heard that it was consistently ranking high internationally. I’m deeply grateful that people loved the project we worked so hard on. When the final episode aired, we received feedback from South America, Southeast Asia and other overseas regions, and I’m just thankful.“
He continued, “I think I’ve been seeing more comments from international fans. In the past, when filming abroad, I used to wonder, ‘How do they recognize me?’ But since this drama aired on a global OTT platform, I feel like the number of international fans has grown significantly. I hope to visit them through overseas fan meetings to express my gratitude.”
Explaining why he chose “When the Phone Rings”, Yoo Yeon-seok said, “I was reviewing scripts while shooting ‘A Bloody Lucky Day’. As I read this one, the romance-thriller genre initially felt more like a thriller to me. In the early scripts, the character Sa-eon had many cold traits.”
He added, “After discussing it with the production team and writer, they explained that while it’s a romance-thriller, the romantic elements would become more prominent as Sa-eon’s story unfolded. I trusted that we could create something great together.”
