I.O.I's Kang Mina Talks 'Tomorrow, Back to Work!' Finale and First Serious Romance Role

Kang Mina, the former I.O.I and gugudan member turned actress, revealed that she initially turned down her role in the tvN drama "Tomorrow, Back to Work!" before eventually signing on.

Kang held a round of interviews on July 29 at a cafe in Samcheong-dong, Jongno district, Seoul, to mark the end of the show. "Tomorrow, Back to Work!" is a tvN Monday-Tuesday drama based on the popular webtoon of the same name. It wrapped its run on July 28.

The office romance follows Cha Ji-yoon (played by Park Ji-hyun), a seven-year office worker stuck in a daily rut, and her prickly boss Kang Si-woo (played by Seo In-guk). As the two become irreplaceable to each other, they restart both their careers and their love lives.

Kang played Yoon No-ah, a five-year office worker caught between love and work. Carrying scars from a long past relationship, No-ah begins to heal after meeting Won Gyu-bin (played by Lee Jae-in), while also facing real questions about her job and her future. The role gave Kang space to build a layered character across the run.

Asked how she felt about the show ending, Kang smiled. "It ended so much faster than I thought it would, so I'm sad about it," she said. "It only wrapped yesterday, so it hasn't really hit me yet, but I keep thinking back to filming from last summer through winter. I was so happy, and it was an honor to work with such great senior actors. I want to tell Gyu-bin, the actor, that he worked really hard too. Most of all, I want to thank the viewers who stayed with us to the end."

She also shared how she came to join the cast. "The director reached out to me first, but I was also looking at another project at the time, so I politely turned it down once," she said. "But at our first meeting, the director had prepared a huge bouquet of flowers. I'm weak to that kind of thing. It was the first time I'd ever received flowers at a meeting, so I was really moved. That evening, I told the director I would do it." Asked if she likes those kinds of gestures, Kang joked, "I'm weak to that kind of thing."

On why she said no at first, she explained, "The storyline of a long-term relationship felt like a heavy load to carry, and I was reviewing another project at the same time."

She also spoke about what finally changed her mind. "I hadn't done a romance with that kind of deep storyline before," Kang said. "That's what pulled me in the most. I wanted to portray No-ah moving from the end of a long relationship into her next love in a way that felt natural, so viewers could understand her without any effort."