Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae returns to Korean TV with a romcom about chasing different roles

SEOUL – South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae is starting to think his co-star Lim Ji-yeon brought him on to their new K-drama Nice To Not Meet You just to “mess” with him, he said at the show’s press conference on Oct 28, only half-joking.

“I keep asking, ‘Why are you treating me like this?’”

The Emmy winner for Squid Game (2021 to 2025) is returning to Korean television after wrapping three seasons of the hit Netflix survival drama, and he has picked something deliberately lighter.

Premiering on Prime Video on Nov 3, Nice To Not Meet You is a romcom that is all banter, casual misunderstandings and zero deadly games that drench you in blood and gore.

Lee plays Hyeon-jun, an A-list actor stuck in his show’s fifth season as a fictional cop. Typecast as the virtuous hero in a procedural that never ends, Hyeon-jun wants out. He is gunning for a role in melodrama, one that lets him cry on camera instead of throwing punches.

It is a set-up that mirrors the meta-casting at work.

Lee, 52, now recognisable in the world from Squid Game – first as the clueless player, then the bitter survivor trying to take down the game – is pivoting to something decidedly lighter. He is looking for that shift in television, where he built his career long before international fame.

“My previous works were quite genre-heavy,” he said. “I wanted to try something lighter, more vibrant and fun. At just the right moment, Lim Ji-yeon reached out.”

Turns out that was not just a casual suggestion. Lim, known for playing the merciless villain in Netflix’s revenge drama The Glory (2022 to 2023), actively pursued him.

“After reading the script, I instantly thought Lee Jung-jae would be perfect for Hyeon-jun,” said the 35-year-old. The two belong to the same management agency, Artist Company, but this marks their first time working together.

Lim plays Jeong-sin, a political reporter who gets tangled up in a scandal and ends up reassigned to the entertainment desk.

As it happens, this one also marks a left turn from her recent works – The Glory, Lies Hidden In My Garden (2023) and The Killing Vote (2023), all unrelentingly dark. “I’ve played so many characters weighed down by hardship,” she said. “I wanted someone bright and optimistic for once.”

Nice To Not Meet You’s premise hinges on Jeong-sin being a total fish out of water. She has no interest in pop culture and zero patience for celebrity gossip, but now she is covering a top star she would rather avoid. In that friction lies the comedy – so does the pathos.

“The most meaningful part is watching Jeong-sin gradually open up to a new world after meeting this top star,” Lim said. “Someone with no interest in pop culture suddenly gets exposed to all the chaos of media and fame.”

To prepare for the role, she studied entertainment reporters at press junkets. “They all had these different characteristics and charms,” she said. “So I figured, why not just start from myself? If my job were a reporter instead of an actor, what would that look like?”

The power dynamic between an aggressive reporter and the celebrity being hassled by her more or less became reality on set. “We bickered a lot on set,” Lee said. “She’s so rough with me that I wonder if she cast me just to boss me around.”

Lim seemed unbothered by the characterisation. “I feel catharsis every single day,” she said, grinning. She noted that Lee’s willingness to take whatever she throws at him has made the work easier. “He just rolls with everything. At some point, it stopped being acting.”

Even before filming began, the age gap between the two leads had raised eyebrows – a nearly 20-year difference that had people talking as soon as the casting was announced. “There’s nothing to overcome,” Lee said. “Despite the age difference, she still treats me this way.”

Lim agreed – sort of. “I’m way more comfortable with him than actors my own age,” she said, to which Lee muttered something about how that is because she does whatever she wants.

One thing unique about the drama is that it features a show-within-a-show: Good Detective Kang Pil-gu, the fictional action franchise that made Hyeon-jun famous. The format gives Lee a chance to revisit the action choreography from Hunt, the 2022 espionage thriller film he directed and starred in.

Director Kim Ga-ram, who worked on K-dramas Nevertheless (2021) and Good Partner (2024), said filming those sequences almost broke the crew.

“The staff kept joking we signed the wrong contract,” she said. “This wasn’t supposed to be two shows.”

The challenge was letting Lee do action without disappointing fans. That meant calling in the stunt team from Hunt. “They know exactly what he can and can’t pull off,” Kim said. “So, they choreographed around that.”

Lee confirmed it worked. “Luckily, the same stunt team came on board. They knew my weak spots.” THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK