Twenty Five Twenty One star Nam Joo-hyuk confesses he gets “really stressed” while acting

While there are many Korean dramas airing at the moment, the tvN drama, Twenty Five Twenty One has consistently been on top whether it is in terms of viewership rating or trending online.

Undoubtedly, the credit of the show’s success goes to its cast, especially Nam Joo-hyuk, who has been garnering much acclaim for his role as Baek Yi-jin. But despite his strong charisma on-screen, the actor confessed that acting gets very “difficult” at times for him.

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Playing his Twenty Five Twenty One character has been tough

In a recent interview with Esquire (translated via Soompi), Nam Joo-hyuk revealed that even though he has been acting for years now, he tends to get “really stressed” in front of the camera. According to him, he gets too caught up in perfecting his performance and trying to “bring out at least 80 percent of the potential of the script” into his characater's on-screen presence.

“I think about how I can I end up having fun on set, but I get stressed when I start thinking about the direction I’m taking with acting when I’m at home. Whether it’s a scene expressing explosive emotions or a calm scene, they’re both difficult. It’s just very hard.

He further added:

I really felt it this time. I talked with the director and the other actors about this a lot on set, and we acted while trying to find a solution.”

The romantic tvN drama, also airing on Netflix simultaneously, sees Nam Joo-hyuk in 1998 as a young man during working hard to make ends meet as the IMF crisis drives his once uber-rich family to the roads. The actor, who has been immensely praised for his emotive performance in the series, shared that for him, it is paramount “not to be excessive when it comes to acting.”

“I wonder how I can be not too excessive and how I can act as if that person is really alive. Honestly, I do think that the viewers may be more engaged if I overdo it with my acting, but I want my acting to be natural like the way water flows. I want people to see my acting and feel [like it flows well] as if they’re watching the water in a river flow.”

Twenty Five Twenty One airs weekly on Saturdays and Sundays on tvN and Netflix.