Kim Jae-chul Breaks Typecasting in Coupang Play Hit 'The Affair Was Just the Beginning'

Kim Jae-chul is used to playing serious men. In The Affair Was Just the Beginning, he plays a shameless one, and he goes all in. The actor has spent most of his career in weighty, commanding roles. This time he swings the other way, digging into the smug, petty dermatologist Joo Bo-seong with sly comic timing and a willingness to look truly ugly on camera. That gamble is paying off. The show has climbed to No. 1 on Coupang Play's most-watched chart.

Kim recently sat down for an interview at a cafe in Seoul's Samcheong-dong neighborhood to talk about the Coupang Play original series.

"The Affair Was Just the Beginning" is a black comedy about two neighboring couples in crisis. Park Kyung-hee (Kim Hye-soo) and Lim Jae-hong (Kim Ji-hoon) are popular influencers who have built a career selling the image of a happy family. Next door, doctor couple Ahn Su-jeong (Jo Yeo-jeong) and Joo Bo-seong are locked in an ugly divorce. The four end up tangled in a secret so big that it makes infidelity look small. Kim plays Joo Bo-seong, Ahn Su-jeong's ex-husband and a dermatologist.

Bo-seong is a sharp turn from Kim's usual work. He is shameless and irritating, and by the back half of the series he tips fully into pathetic. Kim said he felt both drawn to the part and unsure about it. "Reading the script, half of me was excited and half of me was asking, 'Can I actually pull this off?'" he said. "But it was the kind of character that let me show a side I hadn't shown before, so I really wanted to try."

Comedy, it turns out, is not new territory for him. Before television, Kim worked in Daehangno, Seoul's theater district, where broad comic and physical roles were part of his day job. "I did a lot of comedy and a lot of playing the fool back then," he said. "I recognized some of that in Bo-seong, and it felt good. I always thought a character like this would come around eventually, and when it did, I wanted to really go for it."

He did. Kim laughed when asked how far he pushed the character's expressions. "Once I got into it, my face was doing things it never does in real life. I remember thinking, 'Wow, I'm going to look really ugly here,'" he said. "But I felt like I had to throw all of that away for this show. There's a scene in episode 8 where I'm banging on a window, and even I had a hard time watching my own face."

Kim debuted in the 2000 film "Bungee Jumping of Their Own." His first television role did not come until 2020, in the SBS drama "Hyena." Wider name recognition arrived only in 2024, with the film "Exhuma." Getting to this point took a long time.

"I played small parts for a long stretch," Kim said. "Acting is a job where someone else has to choose you. When you're not being chosen, the work dries up, and you start asking yourself, 'Do I just not have talent?' I got shaken a lot." He credits family with getting him through it. "My wife walked through those years with me," he said. "She kept telling me, 'The older you get, the better the roles and the bigger the chances will be. Don't rush it.' I was in a dark tunnel as an actor, and it played out exactly the way she said it would."

That backstory is part of why "The Affair Was Just the Beginning" is hitting No. 1 on Coupang Play means so much to him. He said the reward was not just the numbers but the fact that a role built on trying something new is what connected. "I was hopeful about the show because it was a new look for me, but I was also worried," he said. "I wanted the show to do well, and I wanted people to find Bo-seong annoying but still kind of lovable. It feels like we got there, and I'm grateful."

The response has also expanded his ambitions for what he wants to do next. "This gave me the courage to try lighter, easier-to-watch shows, or a different kind of comedy," Kim said. "It made me realize I can keep showing this side of myself."

He is thinking bigger about the range, too. "As much as I can, I want to keep pulling out things I haven't shown before," he said. "I want to do a romantic comedy. I want to do a love story. I want to try a truly vicious villain. I'm going to take it one step at a time. I'll keep showing new sides, so please keep watching."