Actor Ahn Bo-hyun shared his thoughts on taking part in the project as Spring Fever ended.
On the 11th at a café in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Ahn Bo-hyun sat for a tvN Monday-Tuesday drama Spring Fever end-of-series interview.
Spring Fever is a work that portrays a hot pink romance of spring days that melts the frozen hearts of Yoon Bom (Lee Joo-been), a teacher with a biting cold wind, and Sun Jae-gyu (Ahn Bo-hyun), a man with a burning heart, and Ahn Bo-hyun met viewers playing the role of Sun Jae-gyu in the drama.
The show began with a 4.8% rating for episode 1 and finished with a 5.7% rating for the finale, wrapping up amid favorable reviews. Ahn Bo-hyun said in his end-of-series remarks, "First of all, I feel good. I haven't done as many projects as seniors have, but I'm so pleased I wondered if any of my works have received this much praise. It was amazing how the ratings slowly rose; it was so strange. The fact that the upward trend continued and that there was a fixed viewer base was surprising. Maybe because I watched the final episode, it feels like a successful finish."
Asked what reaction made him happiest, he said, "It's awkward for me to say myself, but comments like 'When I think of Sun Jae-gyu, Ahn Bo-hyun is the only one who comes to mind' made me grateful. I usually adapt closely to original webtoon sources to match the sync rate and I had an obsession about that. I consider it being considerate of the original work, and people said it felt like you ripped the character out of the original, and they often said Sun Jae-gyu = Ahn Bo-hyun, so I felt good that the points where I had worked hard and agonized were well diffused."
What specific parts did he worry about? Ahn Bo-hyun said, "Having source material wasn't a huge burden. The character is so rough and blunt, with a lot of awkwardness, and there was a part that unfolds in his own way. I worried about how viewers would perceive that. I thought the armbands, tight clothes, hair and outward things could cause misunderstanding. I thought the misunderstanding had to stick. So I thought the narrative and the way the village people unfold it would be fun, and it seems to have naturally melted in and resolved. I felt relieved because they seemed to treat it as cute and valued his mere presence."
When asked what attracted him to decide to appear in Spring Fever, Ahn Bo-hyun said, "Dialect was a big factor. Since my hometown is also Busan, I thought, 'There will come a day to use it like a secret weapon,' so I was glad it was based on a dialect. I also liked filming in the provinces." He added, "I don't know which parts of the character Sun Jae-gyu overlap or intersect with me, but the roughness, bluntness and widehearted meddling are somewhat similar to me. Being headstrong and charging in doesn't suit me, but the simple charm resonated. I also liked that he doesn't show his pain; it was attractive."
How did his Busan friends react to his dialect acting? He said, "At first they said it sounded strange. But our drama has subtitles, and when they read along with the subtitles they realized it wasn't strange." He added, "Because spoken and written styles were mixed, the lines were very awkward as dialogue, and they recognized that it was because it was a scripted line."
He continued, "If you do it like Jeong-nam hyung, it's the tone that grandmothers and grandfathers use. Sometimes I'm surprised too. Senior Jeong-nam grew up in his grandmother's care for a long time, so it became his signature, but since the context is the same, I think people found it funny and enjoyed it."
Responding to the description that Sun Jae-gyu, as portrayed by Ahn Bo-hyun, felt more like a beast than just a macho man, he said, "I don't think I'm a macho man or a macho-type guy. Rather, I seem delicate and quietly very aware of others."
He went on to say, "It's because of the outward appearance that he looks that way, and he dresses to look that way, but in every way of speaking, saying 'Eoit, ya!' can show Jae-gyu's macho? manly device, but I don't really think that's the case. In the part where he wipes his tears, it's graceful? Rather, I think that's more like him."
[Photo] Provided by AM Entertainment
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