Lee Seo-jin’s travel style? “Buying merch at a Texas football stadium, eating at a gamjatang place next to a Samsung plant”

[The Financial News] “I’ve always dreamed of spending a night in one of those roadside motels you often see in American movies. But Lee Seo-jin absolutely refused to the very end. In the end, I persuaded him, drove us there myself, and we spent a night. Watching the expressions on his face throughout that whole process was really entertaining,” recalled producer Na Yeong-seok.

Premiering on Netflix today (24th), “Ready or Not: Texas,” led by actor Lee Seo-jin and producer Na Yeong-seok, breaks away from the usual travel-variety formula and instead follows one person’s tastes and lifestyle. Lee Seo-jin chooses the places he wants to visit, and the production team simply follows his lead. Out of five destinations, only about one reflects the staff’s input, and the roadside motel was one such example.
Another hallmark of the show is that producer Kim Ye-seul takes the director’s chair, which means Na Yeong-seok appears on camera more often.
At the production presentation held at 11 a.m. on the 24th at CGV Yongsan I-Park Mall in Seoul, Na Yeong-seok explained, “The production team only weighed in on a few parts of the itinerary. The overall flow was left entirely up to Lee Seo-jin’s choices.”
This approach led to travel plans that the staff found hard to understand. From the planning stage, Lee Seo-jin kept insisting they absolutely had to visit the Dallas Cowboys football stadium. On top of that, they went not just to one football stadium with no games scheduled, but to several, stopping at each team’s merchandise shop to browse and shop one by one.
“These are places you don’t really find in guidebooks or by searching online,” Na Yeong-seok noted. “At the merch shops, he keeps telling everyone else to buy this and that, but he himself doesn’t buy anything,” he added with a laugh. Lee Seo-jin’s explanation was that he had already bought the items long ago and had them at home.
A local Korean restaurant in Texas also reveals Lee Seo-jin’s preferences. Instead of heading to a famous spot in a big city, he chooses a gamjatang (pork bone stew) restaurant near a Samsung Group plant.
“I really love gamjatang, and it’s even better than most gamjatang places in Seoul,” Lee Seo-jin said, adding, “I’d already tried it myself and knew it was good, so I could confidently take everyone there.”
Another pillar of the program is the chemistry that comes from the relationship between Lee Seo-jin and Na Yeong-seok. Having worked together for over 15 years, the two create laughs with their natural back-and-forth banter. Producer Kim Ye-seul described it as “a romantic-comedy dynamic, like a cynical male lead paired with a bubbly female lead.”
Lee Seo-jin’s classic “tsundere” persona—gruff on the outside but warm underneath—will also stand out in this show. Na Yeong-seok described him as “a warm older brother who complains but ends up doing everything anyway,” while producer Kim Ye-seul added, “He’s someone whose outward demeanor and inner warmth are very different. Despite what he says, you can feel his consideration in the way he takes care of every little detail.”
When host Park Kyung-lim asked, “If you’re going to do it anyway, why do you complain so much?” Lee Seo-jin replied, “Because I really don’t want to do it,” drawing laughter.
jashin@fnnews.com Reporter Shin Jin-ah Reporter