Doh Kyung-soo. Picture: Courtesy of Firm Soosoo
Doh Kyung-soo speaks barely above a whisper at a restaurant in Seoul’s Samcheong-dong. Carrying a flannel shirt and a backward baseball cap, he maintains a deadpan expression that sometimes cracks into inadvertent humor, prompting ripples of laughter from the group of reporters.
“I’m a really regular particular person,” he says with such sincerity that it elicits one other spherical of laughter. “I simply sit round watching YouTube cooking movies in my spare time,”
The self-effacement appears quite odd coming from the actor higher referred to as Ok-pop idol D.O. of EXO, a powerhouse in music that has maintained its cultural grip for over a decade. His parallel profession in performing has been simply as notable, with current roles starting from a maverick prosecutor within the TV drama “Unhealthy Prosecutor” (2022) to a stranded astronaut within the bold however spectacular flop “The Moon” (2023).
Doh’s newest enterprise, “Secret: Untold Melody,” sees him taking over a Korean remake of Jay Chou’s beloved 2007 Taiwanese romance “Secret.” The movie follows Yu-jun, a piano prodigy grappling with trauma who transfers to a Korean faculty and turns into entangled in an inconceivable romance.
It’s a departure that offered sudden challenges for Doh, starting with the obvious: He might barely learn sheet music.
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“I used to be shedding my thoughts throughout piano observe,” he says. “My character is meant to be this world-renowned pianist and the items within the film — even a decade of observe wouldn’t be sufficient for me. It simply wasn’t reasonable to count on that I might carry out them from begin to end.”
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So, as an alternative, he targeted on mimicking the bodily gestures of a pianist to the purpose of perfection, drawing on his expertise as a Ok-pop performer. “Copying actions, syncing with music — that half wasn’t totally international to me, given my background in dance and singing.”
(From left) Director Suh Yu-min, actors Shin Ye-eun, Doh Kyung-soo, and Received Jin-ah pose for a photograph at a press convention for “Secret: Untold Melody” held at CGV Yongsan in Seoul. Picture: Yonhap through The Korea Herald
However the actual problem was much less the Rachmaninoff than the movie’s romance writ giant. For somebody as naturally reserved as Doh, the swooning feelings and theatrical traces attribute of the teenager romance proved as daunting because the piano sequences.
“The script desires this look of pure love, however shouldn’t the character be extra involved with the legal guidelines of physics being damaged?” he asks, his matter-of-fact tone making the commentary unexpectedly hilarious. His methodical deconstruction of style tropes continues: “We had these traces like ‘I’m enjoying this for you’ or ‘you might be my miracle’ — it simply doesn’t make sense in actual life.”
His dissection of the position, nonetheless, reveals the actor’s critical strategy to his craft. “Discovering the precise stability was essential. An excessive amount of depth makes it melodramatic; too little leaves it flat. I needed to fine-tune my traces for every lower. It grew to become this exact calibration course of.”
Away from the display screen, Doh’s ardour facilities on cooking, a pursuit he approaches with the identical targeted depth he brings to his roles. His culinary abilities are well-documented; he just lately ran a potato-themed cafeteria as head chef on the variability present “Eat What You Reap.”
“My curiosity about meals began once I tasted one thing and have become obsessive about re-creating that actual taste. I are likely to dive deep into no matter pursuits me, typically recklessly so.”
This single-minded devotion, he says, was a thread that helped him join together with his position. “If I give it some thought, that character trait may need helped me perceive Yu-jun’s blind pursuit of affection.”
Requested about his hopes for the movie’s reception, Doh retreats into his attribute reserve. “It’s actually a delicate film, not too intense,” he says. “It’s a family-friendly fantasy romance. Individuals who respect pure romance over intense genres will take pleasure in it.”
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He pauses, then provides considerably awkwardly, as if he has caught himself saying an excessive amount of: “That’s just about it.”
