K-Drama

Forecasting Love and Weather: Park Min-young & Song Kang on Working Together, Weather Terminology & Workwear

Gwen Ng

| March 2, 2022

K-Drama Forecasting Love and Weather could be mistaken for a fashion showcase for its female lead Park Min-young. The Queen of Rom-Com struts down the hallway of the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) in stylish workwear which has envious women clicking “add to cart” and snapping up her drama OOTD.

On her “ordinary” office wear wardrobe, Min-young said: “I did two office dramas and this is my third time. In my previous dramas, however, I dressed more femininely, with more flattering outfits, but this time since I’m a public servant, I tried to dress down. I mean I’m nothing out of the ordinary, but the director wanted me to look even more so…the director and the writer all wanted me to look ordinary, so I just threw on a shirt and some slacks.

She was speaking at the K-Drama Forecasting Love and Rain press conference, alongside her co-star Song Kang. Ahead of Song Kang’s virtual live fan meet this Friday (March 4), Hallyusg presents the Q & A highlights where the noona-dongsaeng pair talk about the tongue-twisting weather forecasting terminology, working together and Song Kang’s hair.

On Song Kang’s funky hairstyle

Song Kang: I am a more cheery and innocent guy in this show, so I thought about how I’d portray him, and for his looks, I cut my hair short. Short hair left me with a clumsy and a dumb look…I wanted to look like I didn’t really care about my looks. So that’s what happened with my outfit and my hair.

Park Min-young: I had the first scene with him and he came to the set later than I did. Because of the COVID situations we sometimes experience delays. He came a few days later than was supposed to, and you know you expect Song Kang to be handsome and cute and everything, but there wasn’t the Song Kang I expected. I was like, “Where’s Kang? We have a scene together today”. And there he was with funky short hair showing only half of his eyes. So I said to director Cha, “You know I never talk about how I’d appear on screen but this is wrong. Kang? Nope. So many people are going to watch the show just to see Kang!” So from then we opened up his short bangs to show more of his face. I’m supposed to fall for him, so he’d better be (handsome).

On learning the identity of their leading man/lady

Park Min-young said: “I loved it! I thought I was lucky to be able to work with such a hot, popular actor. Then I thought that I’ve seen Kang in dramas before and I always thought that there is more in him and that this time, maybe the director and I could further bring out his potential. Perhaps it’s because of the age difference, but I thought he has much more to show.”

Song Kang said: “Even before we met, I was nervous because I saw her on TV when I was young. I think she’s the kind of person that digs deep. So when I was preparing, I thought that I should also think from multiple angles. And when we’re acting together and something is just not right, she would first ask me what I would do. I really appreciated that she was so considerate. Especially in romance scenes, I learned a lot, she gave tips on how to make the couple more affectionate. She would say “how about adding this here?”

On the challenges of playing weather forecasters

Song Kang: The most challenging part was the terminology. It really didn’t stick. I saw documentaries many times and actually, the professionals too stuttered sometimes during their presentations…Sometimes it’s weather temperature (ki-sang-on-do) and sometimes it’s the terrestrial temperature (ji-sang-on-do), so similar words mean totally different things.

Park Min-young: It was my first try (playing a weather forecaster). For medical dramas or legal dramas, there’re many out there so I had at least a vague idea of what their terminologies are and what kind of tone they talk in. But the KMA was a place I had no idea of. There weren’t many sources to study, such as a documentary where a KMA professional appeared to introduce the place. So I used that as a base on which I built my character on. It was fun yet challenging. At first, I thought this was going to just be fun, but it actually turned out to be one of the most challenging projects I’ve taken on. That actually made me more proud.

Details of Song Kang Live Fan Meet
Date: March 4, 2022 (Friday)
Time: 7PM (SGT)
Livestream from: THE SWOON YouTube channel

New episodes of Forecasting Love and Weather are available on Netflix every Saturday & Sunday.

(Photos: Netflix)

 

Author

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*