'The Blue Road' Son Suk-ku & Nagayama Eita Show Effortless Cross-Border Chemistry: "We Didn't Even Have to Try"

Actors Son Suk-ku and Nagayama Eita raised anticipation for the series "The Blue Road" with their chemistry that transcended borders.

Attending an open talk for the Netflix series "The Blue Road" held at the outdoor stage of the Busan Cinema Center in U-dong, Haeundae-gu, Busan on October 9, Son Suk-ku recalled his first meeting with Nagayama Eita, saying, "We shot our first scene on a set in Japan. The moment we exchanged our first lines, I felt something was different."

He continued, "I went to the director and said, 'I think I can just trust this guy and go with it.' There are times when chemistry just doesn't happen no matter how hard you try, but I felt that this chemistry worked."

Eita shared that he had watched several of Son Suk-ku's works. He said, "Because I had watched many of Son Suk-ku's works, I felt the tension of thinking, 'He's right in front of me,' but I tried to let go of that feeling and focus on acting."

The two actors use Korean and Japanese seamlessly without boundaries in the project. Regarding his Japanese-language acting in the series, Son Suk-ku opened up about the challenges, saying, "Even when I memorized it over and over until going to sleep, it just wouldn't work. I thought I was going crazy."

Son Suk-ku revealed that his personal contemplation as an actor was the reason he chose "The Blue Road," stating, "When choosing this project, I thought that if I picked a project where I felt, 'There's no way I can do this; this is too much for me to handle,' and went all in, that might allow me to share lasting time with the audience."

He added, "If I was going to do it, I wanted to do it properly. Whenever possible, I wanted to speak even the Korean lines in Japanese, and Eita wanted to speak in Korean. In that sense, I felt we shared a similar mindset."

Eita shared their rehearsal process, saying, "The three of us—Son Suk-ku, me, and the interpreter—thought a lot about how to deliver the lines. I remember practicing together for hours while drinking coffee in a park."

"The Blue Road" is a series depicting two detectives chasing twisted corpses, cryptic messages, and horrific murders that recur across borders. It is the new work by director Han Jun-hee of the Netflix series "D.P." and the film "Coin Locker Girl," starring Son Suk-ku and Nagayama Eita, who represent South Korea and Japan. It will be released on Netflix on November 20.

(SBS Entertainment News | Kim Ji-hye)