K-drama star Seo In-guk on new single album Love&Love and why he enjoys his Cafe Minamdang role so m

For Seo, the return to music has been a long time coming, but he’s been waiting for the perfect moment in between acting projects. “I’ve been preparing these presents for everyone for a very long time,” he tells the Post over a video call.

“I didn’t really want to make people confused between my identity as a singer and my identity as an actor playing a character in Cafe Minamdang.”

Love&Love, as the title suggests, features two romantic tunes, and Seo knows that they’re not really a surprise for long-term listeners, but something familiar to reintroduce himself as he dips his toes back into producing and releasing music.

“Be My Melody, with an older pop feel and inspired by David Foster’s music and production styles, was actually supposed to be the lead focus track, but during recording sessions I decided to switch it to My Love because I felt it expressed a mix of emotions like warmth, sorrow and romance.”

Variety is key for Seo’s new take on music after a gap, following management changes and coming into his own as a singer-songwriter, all amid acting roles.

“I think I did release only love songs in my career, but in the future I plan to sing a little bit more about my personal experiences and myself as a person,” he says. “I think maybe I still sometimes struggle being honest to the camera [and in my music], but I really want to be more comfortable at showing people what I’m thinking and feeling at each moment.

“Right now I’m kind of into the blues and rock that is a bit more moody, a bit more melancholic. And I think I’d like to put myself as a villain in a music video maybe, as I think all actors would probably say it’s a lifetime dream to play a conceptual, cool and stylish villain at least once.”

As for his acting in music videos, some may be surprised by one role Seo has become famous for: in 2012, he appeared in the video for K. Will’s Please Don’t …, in which he portrayed a friend upset by the wedding of two of his friends.

A plot twist at the end shows he’s in love not with the bride but the groom, making Please Don’t one of the few mainstream productions in South Korea to feature an LGBTQ+ character. Since its release, it has been viewed over 72 million times on YouTube.

Seo, talking to the Post during Pride Month, was as surprised as viewers were by the memorable finale: “To be honest, I did not know this ending while I was filming because the producer never told me how it was going to end [and be edited]. But it was ultimately a very interesting and fun moment for myself.

“Looking into all the astonished reactions, that was very engaging as well. In the future, if I ever get the chance to act as such a character again and play out such a love, I think I’d be open to it. I’ll try to express any kind of love that a scenario wants.”

It may be hard to believe that Seo has time to plan anything at the moment: he’s been in back-to-back television series and films since 2018, and to be able to spend time on both music and acting he admits he’s turned into a bit of a workaholic.

“It’s a good busy, so even though I’m so busy I’m always in a happy mood,” he says. He likes playing video games, especially Diablo, when he has some downtime.

On the acting front, Seo admits to absolutely loving the character he plays in Cafe Minamdang, a modern-day shaman detective. “He’s a very charming character, and I feel it is a very good way to show the world, especially international K-drama viewers, Korean traditional shamanism, even though he may be wearing a suit rather than traditional shaman costume.”

Nearly 15 years into his professional career, Seo has learned to stop being anxious about the little things and is now stronger, which makes him more confident when he decides what new projects to be part of or what music to release.

“Back then, everything was new. I would get hurt by many things and I would fall down. But going through all that and all the good things that happened in my life, now I’m able to react to all the harsh moments in a far less stressed manner.”

Seo hopes people continue to expect a lot from him, both in his acting roles and his music, and never expect him to stop moving forward, even if at times he steps back from one aspect of his career or another.

“I think of myself as someone who should be working hard when everything is on track,” he says. “I feel that music and acting both are such big matters in my life. Both of them are something that I do well and that I enjoy, so if I were to choose between them it would feel like [myself] vanishing from the world. So I’m just trying my best to do well with both.”

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