Byun Yo-han Lost 10kg and Wrecked His Voice for Tazza: Song of Beelzebub

Byun Yo-han deliberately screamed before takes to make his voice ragged, and dropped more than 10 kilograms over the course of production. Those weren't vanity choices. His character Jang Tae-young in Tazza: Song of Beelzebub has been broken by torture and run out of luck, and Byun wanted the audience to feel that physically before a single line of dialogue landed.

"Actors who make you see and hear something are common," he said in an interview on the 14th at a café in Seoul's Jongno district. "I want to be an actor who makes you feel it."

Two stars, one real dynamic

Tazza: Song of Beelzebub, opening on the 23rd, is the fourth and final film in the Tazza series based on cartoonist Heo Young-man's beloved manhwa. The franchise began in 2006 with Cho Seung-woo in the lead and has drawn over 13 million cumulative admissions across its three previous entries. This fourth installment is a standalone story, set apart from the continuity of the earlier films, following two childhood friends who share the same name: Jang Tae-young (Byun Yo-han) and Park Tae-young (Noh Jae-won).

Their friendship collapses into betrayal and revenge. The irony is that off-screen, the dynamic between the two actors is essentially admiration running in one direction. Noh, the younger of the pair, grew up watching Byun's performances, and when he was cast opposite him, he made a deliberate acting choice: he would let that real feeling of looking up to someone do the heavy lifting.

"The key to the whole film is that Park Tae-young only has eyes for Jang Tae-young," Noh said. "I've been an actor who grew up watching Byun Yo-han's work, so I tried to use what I actually feel when I look up to a senior like him."

He described Byun as someone with a natural confidence and attentiveness he genuinely envies: the kind of person who reads a room quickly and pushes forward when he believes in something. "Sometimes he just looks so cool," Noh added, without a trace of irony. Part of the reason he took the role at all was that Byun was the other lead.

Holding warmth in reserve

To protect that tension on set, Noh made another deliberate choice: he kept his distance from Byun during filming. Even in scenes where the two characters are supposed to be close, Noh avoided warm off-camera conversation or casual intimacy.

"I knew the betrayal was coming, so even when we were shooting the friendly scenes, I wasn't really being affectionate with him on set. I was saving that warmth for the right moment," he explained. The restraint shaped the final cut in ways that are hard to manufacture in post.

For Byun, the challenge was different. The weight of closing a franchise that began two decades ago was real, but he was firm about not treating it as a reason to be precious. "I didn't want to make excuses because it's the final installment," he said. His bigger concern was carving out something that felt like his own.

He and Noh agreed early in production to approach it as their film, not an obligation to the franchise. "We said, 'Let's act in a way that feels like 2026,'" Byun recalled. "This series has a long history, but let's combine our experiences and make it ours."

Poker as a craft

Both actors spent months learning poker ahead of production, and not just the mechanics of it. Byun sought out professional players, including well-known Korean poker figure Hong Jin-ho, to understand the psychological architecture of the game. He practiced chip-handling daily until it looked like muscle memory.

"It's not about luck," Noh said of poker. "The fundamentals and the reading of the situation matter more. That's what made it interesting to me as a skill."

In the film's climactic poker showdown, Byun said he and Noh deliberately moved away from dialogue-heavy emotional expression. "Previous Tazza films used words to convey feeling. We tried to do it through energy and eye contact instead."

For Noh, Tazza: Song of Beelzebub is his first commercial film lead. He was drawn to Park Tae-young precisely because the character resists easy categorization as a villain. "He isn't just a traitor. He was his closest friend, so there must have been guilt too, and that guilt is probably what made him colder over time. I didn't want him to read as purely evil."

Noh grew up watching the original 2006 film, but he found it liberating that this entry tells a completely different kind of story. "As an actor, I want to tell new stories. The fact that it was something different made it attractive."

What's next for both

Byun has been prolific this year outside of Tazza. He appeared in the Netflix release Pavane, the film Gyeongju Voyage starring Lee Jung-eun and Gong Hyo-jin, and director Lee Joon-ik's short-form drama Dad's Home Cooking in roles of varying sizes. He describes it simply as a sense of duty.

"A actor should just run toward whatever they're called to do," he said. "I'm quietly getting on with what I need to do."

He also extended warm wishes to Heo Young-man, the original manhwa creator, who recently stepped back from public activities due to health issues. "I hope he recovers soon."

Noh, meanwhile, is preparing a one-man stage play titled Everything That Shines for Me, opening next month. He described the production as a chance to show audiences something closer to his actual self, after years of being remembered for cold-eyed antagonists, including his breakout role in Squid Game.

"These days I'm living warmly and well," he said with a laugh. "I've been noticing more things, feeling more things. I want to find characters where I can show that wider view, even if they're a little plain."

Tazza: Song of Beelzebub opens on the 23rd, ahead of the Chuseok holiday, and will compete at the box office against several other major Korean releases including The Intern with Choi Min-sik and Han So-hee, and Assassin(s) with Yoo Hae-jin, Park Hae-il, and Lee Min-ho.