Ryu Hye-young on Ko Kyung-pyo: "Always excited, but it's not love" — Just Friends

"I'm always excited" — but not like that

Ryu Hye-young didn't dodge the question when Lee Min-ho asked her directly on the September 14 episode of YouTube channel 짠한형 신동엽: had she ever felt butterflies around Ko Kyung-pyo?

"I'm always excited," she said. "He's a cool man. But it's completely different from love. He feels like a handsome celebrity."

The admission came quick. So did the clarification. "It was just friends. Just friend."

Sixteen years, one drama, zero romance

Ryu Hye-young and Ko Kyung-pyo met at Konkuk University's Film Studies department — one year apart — and have stayed close for 16 years. The industry knows them as genuine friends (찐친).

Then came Reply 1988. In 2015, tvN cast them as the romantic couple Seong Seon-woo and Seong Bo-ra. Ryu didn't even know it was happening. "Ko Kyung-pyo knew, but I didn't," she explained. "Director Shin Won-ho said 'Ko Kyung-pyo is going to fall in love with someone,' and I walked in 30 minutes later."

They appeared together on MBC's I Live Alone on August 7, and their comfort around each other got people talking again.

Arts school, she says, explains it all

Ryu traced her ease with male friends back to her upbringing. "I graduated from an arts high school. The same 32 people just moved spaces and kept living together for three straight years. Living like siblings with friends became second nature to me."

"If there was any misunderstanding, I apologize," she added. "We're just friends."

The three actors were on the channel promoting 암살자(들) (Assassin(s)), director Heo Jin-ho's mystery thriller about the suspicions and background surrounding the First Lady assassination attempt of August 15, 1974.