Choi Hyun-wook Takes On Darker Turn in Netflix's 'The Boy in the Back Row'

Actor Choi Hyun-wook, born in 2002, is stepping into a darker register with the new Netflix series "The Boy in the Back Row."

The show premieres on the 26th. It is a suspense drama about Heo Mun-oh, a failed writer and Korean literature professor played by Choi Min-sik, who becomes fixated on the writing of a college student named Lee Kang after spotting the young man's talent from the back row of his lecture hall. Choi Hyun-wook plays Lee Kang.

Lee Kang is a college student who watches the world from the last row of the classroom. He is the figure who slowly cracks open Heo Mun-oh's life. He looks like an earnest student at first, but his real intentions and feelings surface one by one as the story moves forward, tightening the tension at the center of the drama.

The role pulls Choi Hyun-wook away from the bright youth image he has been known for. He leans into restrained, internal acting here, building Lee Kang almost entirely through his eyes and breathing rather than dialogue or open emotion.

Because Lee Kang is defined more by silence and atmosphere than by direct expression, the part was a new challenge for the actor. Through his agency, Gold Medalist, Choi Hyun-wook said he worked carefully on every detail to shape the character. "To complete Lee Kang, I thought through everything from his posture to the way he holds his gaze, building up the observer-like quality of the character," he said.

His scenes with Choi Min-sik are one of the main draws. The professor-and-student dynamic the two actors build is set up as more than a simple teacher-pupil bond. It plays out as a psychological game in which each man studies and unsettles the other, pulling viewers deeper into the story.

Since his debut, Choi Hyun-wook has built up his filmography with titles including "Twenty-Five Twenty-One," "Weak Hero Class 1," "D.P. Season 2," "Twinkling Watermelon," "High Cookie" (Hai Kuki) and "The Black Dragon" (Geunomeun Heukyeomryong). With "The Boy in the Back Row," he is set to show another new side of himself, and attention is turning to how far this shift in his acting will go.