Co-Showrunner Romeo Candido Talks ‘Gangnam Project’ Finding New Life on Netflix and Working With August Rigo

Gangnam Project is hoping to find new life two years after it initially aired on CBC Gem in Canada and CBBC in the United Kingdom. Netflix has now licensed the show’s first season in many regions, including the US, and it has already reached the top 10s in a number of countries. To celebrate the Netflix drop, we caught up with Romeo Candido, the show’s co-showrunner, director, and executive producer.

The series follows Hannah Shin, a Canadian teen who accepts a job as an English tutor at an elite K-pop entertainment company in Seoul, only to find herself entangled in the high-stakes world of musical trainees.

Candido is no stranger to musical storytelling, having previously helmed the musical series Topline and worked on the massive dance hit The Next Step. Over email, Candido opens up about the “creative chaos” of writing songs overnight with BTS collaborator August Rigo, what else he’s working on right now, the status of Season 2 on Netflix, and rewinding back to the origins of the project. 

Here is the full interview.

What’s on Netflix: Now that Gangnam Project has dropped on Netflix, it’s reaching a massive new global audience who might be discovering it for the first time. For the uninitiated, how do you describe the ‘vibe’ of the show? Is it Glee meets K-Pop, or is it something entirely its own?

Romeo Candido: I think the core vibe of the show is discovery. Discovery of self, expression, trust, friendship, and dreams. That process is full of wonder, fear, confidence, insecurity, and humor. By expressing young adulthood through the lens of a heightened, fantastical K-pop “school,” everything is amplified, but underneath it is grounded in real experience.

The show is inspired by creator Sarah Haasz’s own journey reconnecting with her motherland, Korea. Comparisons to XO, Kitty, Glee, or High School Musical are inevitable, but we put our own spin on the art school genre, rooted in emotional truth rather than spectacle alone.

Picture Credit: CBC

WoN: Can you take us back to the beginning – how did you become involved with the show and when? How long did it take to bring it altogether before the show hit screens?

RC: The show had been in development for quite some time before I came on. Nathalie Younglai worked closely with Sarah to translate her personal experiences into the world of K-pop, and they built something really special. I was brought on because my background in music-driven storytelling was what the project needed at that stage. I had just finished showrunning Topline, which is set in the Toronto songwriting world, and I had co-showrun The Next Step, so I was able to take what already existed and Romeo-fy it.

WoN: The music in this show is one of the things that makes it special. I read it’s mostly composed by August Rigo (who writes for BTS and Justin Bieber). What was the collaboration process like? Did you write the scripts around the songs, or did the songs come out of the drama?

RC: The fact that August even said yes to my text was a real coup. I’ve known him a long time, watched him come up in Toronto, work with some of the biggest pop artists in the world, and then build a career in Korea. If we were going to make a K-pop show, we needed someone with real experience in that world.

We had no time. Scripts were being written days before shooting. I would tell August what the characters were going through, he would write overnight, and deliver one, sometimes two or three songs the next morning. He’s a genius. Songs were recorded in makeshift studios on location, and sometimes filmed the very next day. Every song is part of the storytelling.

I also wrote a few songs myself. I wrote the pilot closer, “The Bridge,” while writing episode one, because I connected deeply with Hannah’s journey. When August gave my songs the thumbs up, that validation meant everything.

WoN: CBC also released a second season of the show – do you have any intel about whether this will follow S1 onto Netflix? What can you tease about that season?

RC: There is a Season 2 on CBC, the Canadian broadcaster. I have no info about season 2 on Netflix, but if people globally want it, then hopefully the love of Season 1 can get Season 2 there.

WoN: What are you personally working on next?

RC: A project that continues to evolve for me is Prison Dancer: The Musical. Developed across concerts, digital platforms, and the stage, the work is inspired by the dancing inmates of Cebu who went viral performing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Beyond the spectacle, the piece examines power, community, and agency, and considers dance as a tool for collective liberation, resistance, and self-definition inside a controlled environment. And SOOOOO Filipino.

Gangnam Project Season 1 is available to stream now on Netflix.