‘Brightness in my life’: Kim Young-kwang finds charm in tropes of ‘Take Charge of My Heart’

"Take Charge of My Heart" is the quintessential Korean rom-com. It has a quirky yet lovable heroine whose clumsiness somehow makes her irresistible to men. Her love interest is a third-generation business heir with a cold heart that gradually warms to her. And waiting in the wings is a second male lead who has been devoted to her since childhood.

The familiar tropes are the point — and viewers should embrace them, just as the actors did, says lead star Kim Young-kwang.

“The clichés are what make this show,” he told reporters in a roundtable interview on Thursday, following the premiere of the 10-episode series on Friday.

“Rather than avoiding them, we [the actors] decided to face them head-on and do them even better," he said.

Kim plays Baek Ho-rang, a competent yet prickly executive director at his family’s hotel business. At a hospital, he bumps into Na Bo-bae, a drama writer played by Chae Soo-bin. Bo-bae’s body generates electricity — which, of course, is just what Ho-rang’s artificial heart needs to keep him alive. The two can’t stand each other, but they can’t stay apart, either. Commence, romance. 

To create a Ho-rang who lived up to viewers’ expectations of a swoonworthy rom-com lead, Kim said he “tried to immerse myself in the situation and let it come naturally,” rather than thinking, “I need to sound more romantic or sweeter.”

But still, some scenes proved difficult to film, particularly a haunted-house date sequence that required repeated takes.

“Just thinking about it still gives me goose bumps. I don’t know how many takes we ruined,” Kim said. “Then [the producers] put it in slow motion, and it drove me crazy [watching it]."

And then there were the scenes conjured by Bo-bae’s overactive imagination.

“They’re such absurd fantasies,” he said. “I felt quite self-conscious filming them. I ruined a lot of takes because I couldn’t stop laughing.”

The shift to romantic comedy was particularly jarring for Kim, whose recent roles have mostly been in crime dramas, including a serial killer in Netflix’s “Somebody” (2022), a gangster in ENA’s crime noir “Evilive” (2023) and an arms dealer in Netflix’s “Trigger” (2025).

The move away from romance was deliberate, Kim said, with "Somebody" being the turning point.

“At a time when I was getting offers to do more romance, I was quite insistent that I wanted to transform myself, take on a challenge and try something different,” he said. “Looking back, I think that was a good decision.”

“For ‘Somebody,’ I spent a lot of time thinking about how to immerse myself [in the character] and how to come across as someone different [than my previous roles],” he said.

“That gave me confidence that, if I put in the time and gave myself room to work, I could transform myself.”

Another lesson he's learned from his career is to be patient.

“When I hit a wall, I’ve learned to take my time and work through it gradually,” he said. “Nothing suddenly falls into place. The wall will eventually come down, but I accept that I can’t bring it down all at once.”

Now, he has his sights set on playing a monster.

“I’d like to try a role with a lot of prosthetic makeup,” he said. “Playing something that isn’t human, a character that feels like it belongs to another world — I think I could find a lot of enjoyment in that.”

"My attitude is to try everything I can."

But romantic comedy has its rewards, too. Kim’s next project, ENA’s upcoming series that translates roughly to “Queen of Taming," will keep him in the genre.

“I think I needed some brightness in my life,” he said of choosing to do “Take Charge of My Heart.” “After doing darker projects and playing villains for so long, I found myself tending to close off emotionally. Since doing this romantic comedy, I’ve been laughing more easily.”

In thrillers, Kim finds himself worrying about how to heighten the tension or make his character more frightening. In rom-coms like “Take Charge of My Heart,” he can let go of those concerns and respond more spontaneously to his fellow actors in the moment.

“That freedom is hugely appealing,” he said.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]