Between Byeon Woo-Seok landing his next big role in Perfect Crown and Lovely Runner becoming one of the most popular K-dramas of 2024, the internet decided it was time to talk about his face. Not because of the way he acted. Not because of his genuinely captivating chemistry with co-star Kim Hye Yoon. His countenance. In particular, whether and to what extent any of it had been changed.
In Korean entertainment, this pattern is well-known. Fame comes swiftly, and with it comes a certain kind of scrutiny that tends to follow anyone with a particular appearance. Byeon Woo-Seok has a very distinctive appearance: he is tall, has a clean V-shaped jaw, a smile that displays two symmetrical dimples, and a face that appears almost unbalanced. The discussion might not take place at all in a different cultural setting. His features practically begged the question in the world of K-dramas, where appearance is tracked publicly and discussed with remarkable candor.
The extent to which the evidence refutes the rumors is what makes this case intriguing. His middle school and high school graduation pictures received over 50,000 views in less than a day when they appeared on the Korean online forum theqoo in the middle of 2024, in part because people were curious to see if anything had changed. The dimples were the same in the pictures. The same smile in both eyes. Any face looks the same at fifteen as it does at thirty, but it is younger and less defined. A large percentage of viewers essentially said, “There’s nothing here.” He simply grew into his face.
On the tvN variety show Taxi, Byeon Woo-Seok directly addressed the subject, saying that he had never had plastic surgery. However, he also candidly acknowledged that he had thought about it before his debut, a fact that probably took some guts to disclose in public. Fans responded favorably to that blend of candor and denial. Many viewers were willing to believe him because it’s the kind of response that feels genuine rather than staged. Photographs of him taken at various stages of his life have been examined by industry observers and aesthetic analysts, who have generally come to the same conclusion: the changes are consistent with natural weight loss and the typical structural sharpening that occurs to male faces between the late teens and early thirties.
Particularly with regard to Perfect Crown, the more recent discussion has taken on a different form. In contrast to his work in Lovely Runner, some viewers of the drama noticed what they called a stiffness in his facial expressions. Commenters on a Reddit thread about the subject speculated that fillers or Botox might be to blame, and the thread gained a lot of traction. That explanation might be accurate. Another possibility is that the problem is directorial, and this seems at least as likely. Behind-the-scenes video from the production showed Byeon Woo-Seok moving his face within a normal range, as several people in that same thread noted. His portrayal of a subdued royal figure in Perfect Crown may merely require a restrained, emotionless performance. In that situation, a blank face could be an act rather than a restriction.
Observing the entire exchange, it seems to reveal more about expectations than Byeon Woo-Seok. Warm, expressive, and emotionally accessible, audiences who fell in love with Ryu Sun Jae are evaluating every role that follows in light of that particular performance. The hunt for an explanation starts when the new character fails to convey the same message. It’s convenient to have surgery. It gives a sense of disappointment a reason, and it also has the advantage of sounding like insider information. However, there are graduation pictures. There is a taxi interview. People who have actually examined his face over the years agree that what you’re witnessing is simply a man who was born with good proportions and a smile that looks good on camera, developing into the version of himself that is currently the focus of Korean dramas. Surgery rumors are more exciting than that. In this instance, it’s also most likely the correct one.