A Shop for Killers' star Lee Dong-wook jokes winning top award in Yoo Jae-seok's show is 'quite burdensome'
Lee Dong-wook at the press conference for A Shop for Killers on Jan 15, 2024.
PHOTO: Disney+
PUBLISHED ONJanuary 17, 2024 6:46 AMBySyarifah NadhirahHe's not only an action genius, but one in comedy too.
At a Jan 15 press conference for his upcoming K-drama A Shop for Killers, South Korean actor Lee Dong-wook was also asked about a different show - comedian Yoo Jae-seok's YouTube series Pinggyego (Just An Excuse) in which he won a top award.
"Now I feel burdened with wanting to make everyone laugh as much as possible, so with every action I take, I always want to make people laugh," the 42-year-old joked.
"You know, it's quite burdensome. I don't think I'm going to be on another one of his shows anymore."
In Pinggyego, guests on the show have lighthearted chats with Jae-seok. In a December 2023 episode, the inaugural Pinggyego Awards was held with categories akin to a real awards show and Dong-wook won the Daesang (Grand Prize).
When it comes to being called an "action genius" though, Dong-wook humbly disagreed with the title - though his past roles speak for themselves.
"I'm not a genius, I wouldn't call myself that," Dong-wook said.
He has played a sword-wielding magical nine-tailed fox in Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938 (2023), a cop in Bad and Crazy (2021) and a billionaire with knives growing out of his back in Blade Man (2014).
In A Shop for Killers, he takes on the role of Jeong Jin-man, a retired mercenary who secretly runs an unusual shop selling weapons.
When he dies unexpectedly, his niece Jeong Ji-an (played by Kim Hye-jun) becomes the target of assassination due to his dangerous legacy.
Though this isn't Dong-wook's first action role, he revealed that the kind of training required is different this time round.
"Most of the action that I've shown until now has a lot of fantastical elements to it, so I did a lot of wire action and my character would sometimes use magic," he explained.
"I also did a lot of action using long swords but this time round, I used a lot of firearms and shorter daggers as well, so I think it's more realistic. It was quite new and practising the action scenes was very tough."
'Just to make it fun for my fans'
PHOTO: Disney+
One thing that visibly stood out during the press conference was Dong-wook's ash grey hair.
He shared: "I changed my hair colour just to make it fun for my fans… At first I thought this hair colour was kind of new to me and I kept forgetting that I had changed it until it’s brought up [by others]."
He was asked about his chemistry with Hye-jun, and he recalled how they were "very close friends" on set.
"We felt at ease with each other and sometimes I could be very clumsy but Hye-jun would be enthusiastically caring towards me so she helped me out a lot," he replied.
Hye-jun, 28, felt the same: "I relied on him a lot. When I went to the action academy, I had a lot of hard times.
"Nobody was really on my side because everyone was like, 'You have to do it anyway,' but Dong-wook told me that I shouldn't get hurt and to do whatever I can… I was very touched."
A Shop for Killers premieres today (Jan 17) on Disney+.
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