‘Teach You a Lesson’ star Pyo Ji-hoon feels the buzz, says Zico wants season 2 cameo

Pyo Ji-hoon isn’t on social media, but he’s feeling the popularity of Netflix's  “Teach You a Lesson” in very tangible ways, thank you very much.

Zico, Pyo’s bandmate with hip-hop group Block B, and comedian Shin Dong-yup are just some of the people who keep him updated on how well the Netflix series is doing, Pyo said. And in a group chat with the director and co-stars Kim Moo-yul, Jin Ki-joo and Lee Sung-min, the members have vowed to savor “each happy day and every comment,” sending one another screenshots of amusing reactions.

“Zico is really busy right now, but he said he watched the whole series in two days while on the move,” Pyo told reporters in a Seoul cafe on Tuesday.  

“He keeps on asking to let him on as a cameo if there’s a second season. I tell him, Zico hyeong, stop saying nonsense," he said with a wide smile, using the term of affection that men use to address older men.

Pyo may not even have the Instagram app — he says he’s “not cut out for phones” — but there’s a reason so many people across the entertainment industry are reaching out. After debuting under the stage name P.O as a rapper with Block B in 2011, he’s starred in hit comedy shows like “New Journey to the West” (2015-20) and “Great Escape” (2018-21), as well as in drama series “Good Partner” (2024-) and “Hotel Del Luna” (2019).

In exciting news for fans, Pyo says he and the band members are discussing a comeback next year. Block B has been in hiatus since releasing its sixth EP, “Montage,” in 2017, though members have released music as solo artists and pursued other endeavors.

“The timing has to work, and of course, we need the right songs before we can make a comeback,” Pyo said.

He described the band as “family” and “a home I can always return to,” calling the years when Block B was at its peak — releasing hit tracks such as “Nillili Mambo” (2012), “Very Good” (2013) and “HER” (2014) — “a proud and […] happy chapter.”

“I barely knew what I was doing, but I just wanted to seem cool,” he said. “We tried all these crazy hairstyles and gestures and choreography to fit each song’s concept. I find that younger version of myself admirable and fascinating.”

Years of performing onstage also helped him feel at ease and project confidence in front of the camera when he began acting, Pyo said.

In “Teach You a Lesson,” Pyo plays Bong Geun-dae, a member of the Educational Rights Protection Bureau, a fictional government agency that punishes people who disrupt schools. A tech-savvy KAIST graduate, Geun-dae is physically less threatening than fellow agents Na Hwa-jin and Im Han-rim, played by Kim and Jin, so he often goes undercover or supports field operations through hacking and other IT skills.

“I didn’t realize how difficult it was to act out being hit,” he said. “If you get it wrong, it can look really awkward. I used to watch action films and TV shows and think only the person throwing the punch had to look good, but I learned that the person taking the hit has to sell it just as well.”

If the series returns for a second season, Pyo said he would like Geun-dae to learn martial arts to protect himself and take on more action scenes.

As for Geun-dae’s barely-there romance with Han-rim, Pyo said viewers could look forward to seeing “two characters at opposite extremes gradually understand each other and meet somewhere in the middle.”

“Geun-dae seems to me as someone who has never dated,” he said. “[Season one] ended before he even realized there was anything between them.”

Tuesday was Pyo’s first roundtable interview as an actor, despite his having appeared in multiple series and films since 2017. “Teach You a Lesson” is his biggest hit yet: The show, released on June 5, has topped Netflix’s non-English TV chart for two consecutive weeks and ranked No. 1 in 46 countries and regions as of Wednesday, according to the platform.

Though Pyo has taken principal roles in series such as “Teach You a Lesson” and “Good Partner,” in which he played a rookie lawyer, he has rarely been the central lead and has often portrayed bright, innocent characters.

He said he was in no rush to become the face of a project, but hoped eventually to earn recognition for roles that were the complete opposite of his usual image.

“I just want to do better in the roles I’m given and the ones people seek me out for,” he said. “I hope to gradually show audiences, ‘Oh, he can do this kind of role, too,’ and then show them something different the next time. I want to build enough credibility that, eventually, I can convincingly play even a villain.”

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]